My brother, only three years old, burrowed deeper underneath the covers of his bed, peaking above the rim of grandma’s stitched quilt, his croaking voice chattering as he cried for mother. Mom entered the room, wearing her snowsuit and gloves. She quickly and calmly explained that the heater for the house had broken, and that a very bad storm was happening outside. The temperature was steadily getting colder, the wind was shrieking outside. I looked out the window and saw sheets of snow blown horizontally past the house, misting across what seemed to be mountains of the white stuff. I was afraid, my brother was afraid. It seemed like the end of the world. The snow didn’t seem to have an end in sight. Our parents were growing more and more excited in their desperation of what to do.

I heard the door slam, with the clomping stomping footsteps of my father shaking the layers of snow off his boots. He entered our bedroom and told our mother that both the vehicles were snowed in and would not start, the batteries were dead. With the heater broken, our only hope was to walk to the neighbor’s house, which was one-half mile away, through the blowing, biting snow. A daunting task in the midst of the country in this life-threatening situation.

We were bundled in several layers of pants and coats, and wrapped in heavy blankets. The wind shrieked like a banshee as the door opened and our parents carried us off into the storm. I remember hearing my brother whimper that he couldn’t walk through all the snow. Our parents decided to carry us, I on my father’s back, my brother on my mother’s. The biting cold tore through our coats, stinging the flesh. I remember my tears freezing to my face, my hands so numb. I couldn't catch a breath, the cold so bitter that it was like a blade in the lungs.

I don’t remember reaching the neighbor’s house, nor how long it even took to get ther. I remember waking up with my hands and feet stinging so badly as if thousands of pins were being pricked into my skin. The neighbor woman was rubbing my hands and feet while I cried. My mother and father were passed out, exhausted near the couch. My brother was crying. We had made it to safety.

We spent almost a week there, with no means of going to town. No vehicles could make it through the roads, not even the county plows. People were using snowmobiles to deliver groceries to those that were most in need. Ours were time spent in the neighbor's family room, before the fireplace playing dominoes and staring out the window sheeted with ice and snow.