How big it must be by now!
Part of a poem she had written long ago came into her mind.
"I saw you waiting for me,near the apple tree. You were waiting there. Waiting there for me."
So often she had sat with Shoo-Fly at the foot of this tree, many times sharing an apple from it's branches.
She remembered the beautiful scent of apple blossoms that filled the air on the first day she met her forever friend.
To this day she still thought she could smell the dainty white flowers.
She smiled to herself.
Memory was a funny thing at her age, she mused.
She had difficulty remembering the present date,
yet, memories of a time so long ago were so vivid...
and for some reason, she thought,
even more so today.
The snow! March had certainly come in like a lion that year and the eighth day of the month was proving to be the worst.
She had worried so about Shoo-Fly.
The snow in the backyard would have been at least up to her knees and recent foot surgery had left her unable to do anything about it.
She had surveyed the yard that day with growing dismay. The nearest Shoo could get to the house was the apple tree. She had been feeding him by the back porch step, but the large snow drifts that now lined the back of the house made that out of the question. She pushed at the storm door. It would not budge.
Frustrated and near tears, she closed the inner door.
Surely though, she told herself, the little rabbit would not venture out on an evening such as this.
The next morning she hobbled down the stairs to the kitchen and found the back door still impossible to open.
Peeking out the small window of the storm door she gasped in surprise.
There, coming from the back of the yard to the house were rabbit tracks, all the way to the door!
Her friend had come!
What joy mixed with sorrow!
Joy, that her beloved friend had come to her for help. How valuable! No amount of gold in the world could ever be as valuable to her as this!
But what sorrow! He had come to her and she had not been able to help him.
Tears ran down her face as she closed the door and sat down at the kitchen table.
Later that day, when her husband arrived home from work, she had told him of the tracks in the snow.
Saying very little, he turned from her and disappeared into the garage.
Suddenly she heard all sorts of commotion going on in the backyard.
Looking out the small kitchen window, much to her surprise, she saw her husband standing in mounds of snow armed with a pick, a shovel and the snow blower!
Before long, he had carved a path from the back door to the apple tree.
"There", he had said upon entering the house. "It's fixed."
That evening, piling on extra socks and pulling on the surgery shoes given her to wear, she had made her way to the tree where her friend waited....
and once again they sat, sharing treats and apples (although now from the fruit bowl in the kitchen!),
as together they watched their evening star and thought of spring.
"Apples we shared and moments of gold", she whispered."Shoo and I huddled deep in the cold."
Not too far in the distant future her husband's kind efforts would be memorialized in a poem she would write for her forever friend.
Memories would flood her heart as she wrote:"A path through the snow to the young apple tree was made for the friendship between Shoo and me."
Once again, a tear traced it's way down the wrinkled face.
So beautiful, she thought!
Those precious tracks in the snow!
Tracks that would forever be etched in her heart.
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