It finally snowed deep enough to slap on some cross-country skis and make first tracks here in Michigan. But not for me. Today, with my ordinary boots, I walk from my car through the snow into the mall. My goal is to walk twice around the warm interior. Yesterday I made the trek once.

First, I head to the bookstore cafe. I like to start the day with a double espresso and a bowl of soup. Today it’s garlic leek. That should set me right. I’m starting my twenty-fourth year on dialysis. And fortunately for me and our family I’ve spent most of that time on various types of home dialysis–but mostly nocturnal home hemodialysis. It wasn’t what my high school sweetheart, Drea, and I had planned, but so far, we’ve been living life on our terms despite this little hiccup.  It was a year after we met that I found out that I had Stage 3 chronic kidney disease. 

I drain the little cup of coffee, finish the soup, and walk out the book store into the quiet corridor. The new deep snow keeps me thinking back to a time before dialysis–when I had abundant energy. A time I couldn’t wait to jump into my skis and make first tracks through the nearby woods. But a severe back infection that started a little over a year ago spread to my vascular access graft in my left bicep, and blew it open. I’ve slowly been recovering. After surgeries on my arm and months of treatment for my back, I had to relearn how to walk due to the pain and the lack of strength. I’m now walking and I am grateful that I am alive.

I take some steps down the concourse and think back to a particular day of skiing. It is in the winter of 1994, sunshine streams in through the frosted window pane of our first home and wakes me. Fresh snow weighs down the boughs of our neighbor’s spruce. Drea is sleeping. I lean in and kiss her cheek and whisper that I’m taking Amos for a ski at Beard’s Hills and that we’ll be back in a little while.

Once outside, we jump in the Jeep and head toward the Black River Valley. I make the turn into the lot and I open the rear. Amos, our three-year-old chocolate Lab, leaps out into the snow and takes off for the forest. I call for him to heel. The dog arcs his trajectory and runs back toward me. Then he takes off again. This is repeated four times until he finally stops; the excited dog loves the snow as much as I do.

It is deep, right up to his chest, but that doesn’t stop him from bounding down the trail, then dashing off it in search of a deer, only to leap back onto it ten yards later. I kick glide down the trail pausing occasionally to enjoy the crisp silence of the snow-laden trees. Occasionally I shout for Amos, to remind him to return.

Soon the silence is broken by the sound of flowing water. The Black River picks up the flow of Mill Creek as it enters upstream and its velocity is significant as it cuts its way through the hills. Three to four-feet-wide shelves of ice form on the sides with an open channel flowing down its center. As we switchback down the hillside, the river comes into view.

The path levels out as it reaches the valley bottom. The skiing is difficult because of the heavy brush buffering the shoreline. As I search for a way through, Amos scampers under the bushes and out onto the ice. When I look up, he’s disappeared. I peer out onto the river and finally I see his nose buried in the snowy ice along the shore. 

“Amos, come.” 

I’m sure he hears me, but it seems that he is too intently sniffing to respond. I suspect that the ice near the open channel is thin and I want him off it.       

I call again. Nothing. Now I have to bust my way through the scrub and coax him off the ice.  The brush is thick and I beat it down with my poles as I advance.

I bust through the last of the branches. He is no longer on the ice. Panicking now, I again shout his name. Then downstream I see his brown head moving against the current. The flow is strong. I pop off my skis and I trudge along the icy bank.

Amos’ strong legs easily propel him through the frigid waters toward the shore. He reaches one paw onto the ice. As the pad of his second paw lands on it a piece breaks off and he’s pushed downstream. Seemingly undaunted, Amos turns his head against the flow and slowly works his way back. The current has undermined the ice creating a thin ledge that can’t bear his weight. Each time Amos returns to scramble out, the slab breaks and he slides into the river. Despite the thick fur of my water dog, I fear he can’t last much longer in the near freezing water. 

My mind goes blank. Then I clear the daze and look downriver. I need a plan. Amos appears to be panicked. His movement is slower. Now I see it–jutting out from the inside a meander twenty yards downstream–a sandbar. I have to get to it before Amos. If I can just get there, extend my arm into the channel, I’ll grab his collar and pull him in. But if he gets there first, he’ll be lost downstream.

I find a deer path and move faster down the shoreline. The brush is no longer a problem, but the snow’s deep. It’s slow going. Amos tries to get on the ice as I run past him. This confuses my poor dog. As he sees me, he stops trying and starts to swim downstream. 

I see that Amos isn’t listening to my shouts of “No!” He is trying to catch up with me.  He’s swimming with the current and moving swiftly. Soon he’ll pass the sandbar. My lungs burn as I push my way through the snow. I’m determined to save my good boy. 

With seconds to spare, I reach the sandbar. A ledge of ice extends from it out into the channel. Will it hold me? I cautiously step on to it. I hear nothing–no cracking. It holds. I lie down on my stomach and reach my arms and legs in a spread-eagle. Just a few more seconds and he’ll be here. I stretch out to the edge. My arm isn’t long enough. I’ll miss him. I squirm my way closer.  

I hear the creaking of spider cracks. I’m about to fall into the frigid water. As the ice continues cracking, my fingers reach out just as Amos comes around the bend. 

He’s barely paddling. His thick tail sweeps back and forth as his legs slowly churn the water. The current does the rest pushing him within inches of the edge of the ice. I will my body out as far as I can, stretching my fingertips into the numbing water, hoping to find his collar. My wet-gloved hand goes numb but I see that I have a hold. With all my might I squeeze my frozen fingers around his collar and pull. 

“Crack.”

The additional weight of Amos is too much. My arm and shoulder are now in the river as I hastily edge my way backwards to the shore dragging him along. I reach out toward a bush growing in the sandbar with my other hand. The shelf is breaking, and I need to get off of it, now! Finally, my right foot slides off of the ice and sets down on the sand bar just as the remaining ice breaks away. With my foot on the bar, the rest of my body falls through the disappearing shelf. My knee hits the sandy bottom under the ice. Luckily, there’s only a few inches of water. With both feet now in the wet sand I slowly push myself up to standing. Amos is already shaking off the cold water. I stumble onto the solid shore, reach a waterlogged arm around his neck, and close my eyes in relief.

I hold him until he shakes my arm away. Amos wants to run and I know that I need to get up and also move. I don’t want hypothermia.

I work my way back up the deer path until I find my skis. Amos is running up the hillside. I put on my skis and push my way up the hill using my remaining strength to get back to the car. Amos is there waiting. I open the hatch and Amos hops in. I sit behind the wheel and turn on the car and blast the heat. I pull off my wet gloves and point my fingers in front of the vents. As the car warms up, I just sit and say a short prayer of thanks. I’m grateful that we are safely going home to Drea.

I finish my second loop of my walk around the mall. I step outside and into my Equinox and sit for a few minutes watching the snow fall. My hands are warm, and my big brown Lab has been gone now for twenty years, but my funny, little black and white Boston Terrier, Lil’Prince, waits for me to come home. Tomorrow I’ll try for three laps.