By SUSAN DROMEY HEETER, InDepthNH.org
A couple of years ago, I came across an angel in the First Parish Thrift Shop here in Dover.
She was five dollars, pristine, and large enough to make a statement in my backyard. I remember driving her home, she sat in the passenger seat, and I really did feel protected, literally having an angel by my side. Today I muse joyfully on that angel as she sits on the diving board, covered in snow, waiting for a literal and figurative spring.
It’s good to look out my office window and see her. She’s been on that diving board since December, for the holidays I put her in front of a lit Christmas tree, also located on the diving board.
I like the thought of an angel on the diving board, preparing for her cannonball, her front flip, her swan dive. She’s overlooking the snow, the covered pool and dreaming of what’s ahead: splashes, bounces, perhaps a belly flop or two.
That angel is patient, so patient, so entirely at peace with the waiting, with the snow, with the shadows that surround her. I believe she sings at night, little tunes about her bouncing, bouncing, bouncing into the water when it warms. She giggles, she beholds the secret of a beautiful upcoming spring and summer. She knows.
It’s glorious to have an angel on the diving board, someone I can giggle with and plan my front flips, my back flips, my bounces. The snow will melt, the warmth will come, the angel on the diving board will be met with lovely ice that has melted, snow that is now warmth, a summer of glow.
I muse joyfully you have your own angel on the diving board helping you bounce and find joy in this winter of snow and ice. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Soon enough, you will.
Susan Dromey Heeter is a writer from Dover who recently let her hair go au natural white. Writing has been her passion since her English majoring days at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Dromey Heeter has lived in The Netherlands, Alaska and currently basks in all things New England, including the frigid winters. An avid swimmer, Dromey Heeter’s great passion is to bring back body surfing as most children have no idea how to ride waves without ridiculous boogie boards.