When I think of my winter images of youth, I was never more than ten feet from the house. Vrooming on the snowmobile that didn’t run next to the remains of the marigolds buried in white. Sledding down the back slope that stopped at our basement entry. Building a snowman, rolling each ball to block the front door steps. Maybe it was to conserve the precious energy already used to bundle, and yet to be used to unbundle, (to be capped, scarved, zipped, and booted was exhausting), but mostly I think it was due to the absence of our screen door.

There was such freedom in summertime. The screen doors that lined the houses of Van Dyke Road were never really closed. They bounced as we ran through, with the promise of return. And even if someone did bother to secure the latch, voices could carry on summer breezes for miles. Mothers could call from kitchens and still be heard in abandoned fields. So we ran. Like feral cats. Up and down the gravel. Secure in the knowledge that we were always in reach — that behind every screen door was someone who could offer a band-aid or a pink baby aspirin after a bike spill. That there would be someone who knew what to do if you ate half the bottle simply because they tasted so good. Stripped of shoes and cares, we could wander and still hear Frank calling Sylvia at the clothes line. Mrs. Mullen calling for Patsy. Mrs. Weiss calling for Bonnie. Phyllis Norton’s constant stream of gathering in the five Norton felines.

I suppose it is because of those bouncing screen doors that I ended up a country away, and still within love’s reach. I can still hear the call, even with winter nipping at my bare heels.

I give thanks each day for all those who kept me safe, kept me wandering.

As we say so long to the last of our Van Dyke Road mothers, I want to gather in close, to hear once again the bouncing promise of love’s return.

In loving memory of Phyllis Norton.