As usual, Norm is right.

There I was, ready to leave town for Christmas to spend time with family in North Carolina, just as I’ve always done. The traveling clothes were nestled in their suitcase and the gifts were loaded with care, when we got a good old-fashioned New England snowstorm that measured 18 inches outside my door. Y’all who pass your time in elevations below the 1,700 feet we traverse up in Ashfield missed that storm. I delivered some light-pole stars to Greenfield the next day and there was still patches of grass there.

But up in the higher elevations, there arose such a clatter at 4:00 in the morning two days before I was scheduled to set out. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a big fat tree limb and my second-worst fear.

The fallen limb off the tree hadn’t hurt the roof, but had decided that the snowy cold was too much to bear so it would come in through the window and take a long winter’s nap on my couch. Crafty in its methods, it flipped over on its dive toward my house so that the heavy end smashed the window. Suddenly, two days out and with outside temperatures dropping, I had some immediate work to do before I could go anywhere.

The sad news was that the shattered window was one of those that came with the house, sporting the old wavy glass that doesn’t grace the energy-efficient windows of the present. The good news was that I knew where to buy some newfangled Plexiglas that I, myself, installed over the hole, after evicting the limb with the help of a guy who had come to plow my neighbor’s driveway.

I congratulated myself on beating disaster, and got on the road near the appointed time, delayed a bit as I stopped in to say goodbye to the Dougs and the Waynes breakfasting at Neighbors, always worth some extra time.

I drove down to Concord, North Carolina, where it’s called “CON-cord” with hard Rs all around (in case you ever come to visit) and celebrated Christmas with the newer family members as well as the old familiar ones, and a good time was had by all.

The following night my sister and I sat, eating chocolate, deciding who was going to use up the hot water for a shower and who would wait until tomorrow morning’s hot water reboot, when we saw flashing lights outside the window. Concord, North Carolina, while missing the 1,700-foot elevation of Ashfield, has the same dark rural environs so that the strobing lights of an emergency vehicle attract the same attention, especially when it stops next door.

And just like when an EMS vehicle pulls up in Ashfield, we grabbed our coats and hurried out into the cold night to see if there was anything that we, the helpless friends of my sister’s neighbors, might do for anyone.

Seconds later the neighbors’ daughter jumped out of her car and ran sobbing toward her parents’ house. My sister went with Lauren to find out what might be needed. I stayed back with the growing crowd of worried neighbors at the street, watching, speculating until the emergency workers began walking instead of running between the house and their equipment-laden vehicles, signaling that the emergency was no more. We learned that Kelly, my sister’s friend and neighbor since 1991, had stood up an hour prior, called out to her husband and he’d run to her just in time to catch her, her life spirited off by a stroke. And Kelly, at only 60 years old, was gone without any advance announcement on this day after Christmas, leaving her husband, her daughter, her baby granddaughter and a whole neighborhood of shocked and grieving neighbors.

Norm’s mantra of the last several weeks has been, “Everything is subject to change.” He reminds me of it every visit as he watches his own surroundings rearrange themselves in these days so very far away from the ones he entered life in 96 years ago.

It’s as comforting as it is discomfiting, knowing that the bad can right itself if we’re patient or clever enough, but the good, the anticipated, the sweet future is never assured.

Those are good words Norm, as we head into the next chapter, 2023. I appreciate your wisdom and your perspective every single day.

Nan Parati lives and works in Ashfield, where she found home and community following Hurricane Katrina. She can be reached at NanParati@aol.com.

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