Finding the Perfect Tree

My goddaughter's mother and I have been "soul sisters" since we were 5, actually just slightly longerthan that.

Every year her family drives to Wyoming to cut their own wild-growing tree. This year was challenging. To put it in perspective, my goddaughter is taller than me! She's nearing 5'6" now, and she's waste-high in powder.

The scene makes me think of the snow that covers the ground at the end of James Joyce's story, The Dead: "His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow faling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead."