It was my aunt Karolynn that led me through my first “March Madness.” It’s spring here in France. It won’t snow. We don’t follow basketball. But each year at this time, I am nestled in New Brighton, MN, in front of the television.

Visiting my cousins in this near Minneapolis suburb usually meant playing with my cousins — in the unfinished basement or outside. We only ever used the back door, which opened to both. 

But snow was falling as predicted this March, and I had just had surgery on my knee. My mom was working two hours away, so it fell on my aunt Karolynn to pick me up from the hospital. The leg-length plaster cast was not the full weight of it all. I worried about the school I was missing. The mom I was missing. The fact that my new Adidas track suit pants, purchased solely for this reason, ripped upon trying to stretch over my cast. And even though I had spent much time on summer visits to this place, I had never been alone with my aunt. In the wintertime. Immobile. I started to cry in the driveway. I placed my crutches under my already sore arms and began heading on the sidewalk to the back door. No, she said, and pointed to the front door. I was confused. I had never gone in the front door. It opened to the living room — the living room I had never sat in. She plopped me in Uncle Mike’s chair. Covered me with a blanket. Placed a tv tray around my legs. Brought me a bowl of Chicken Noodle soup – Campbell’s, not an off-brand. And she turned on the television. “It’s March Madness,” she said. I agreed before understanding it was the college basketball tournaments. I liked basketball, but mostly I liked when the announcer talked about the “Cinderella” teams — those with barely a chance, who came out shining! That would be me, I thought. I hoped. Half souped, warmed, the snow kept falling outside. But sitting in this front room, cared for, loved, I was indeed Cinderella. 

It was only a moment, I suppose, but it has stayed with me. Here in another country. A March filled with its own unique kind of madness circles around me, and I am safe. I will walk out the front door, and know that I am loved.