A Snowman’s Heart

Legend has it that if you can warm up a snowman’s heart, s/he will become a real person. The person s/he once was. That is why we try to dress up these big, round snow-persons as best as possible, expecting that the glow will reignite inside and they will return to being happy.

Joy grew up believing in this legend and every year she would devise all sorts of things in the hope of turning the snowman into a real person. She would dress him with beautiful, colourful, clothes – not just the scarf, but a jacket, gloves, a woollen hat, sunglasses even. But that wouldn’t work. One year, she even made a snowwoman to keep him company, wishing that love and companionship was what made the snowman’s heart grow colder.

The year her parents divorced, Joy was still a teenager. When winter came, she understood why the season causes some to fill with melancholy and depression. And when her own heart was broken, she realised what it is that makes some hearts grow cold.

Then she found a random hand-written note in a book she had borrowed from the library. It read: “Here’s the thing about people with good hearts. They give you excuses when you don’t explain yourself. They accept apologies you don’t give. At your worst, they lift you up, even if it means putting their priorities aside. It’s because they don’t make you work hard for the attention they give you. They accept the love they think they’ve earned and you accept the love you think you’re entitled to. Let me tell you something. Fear the day when a good heart gives up on you. Our skies don’t become grey out of nowhere. Our sunshine does not allow the darkness to take over for no reason. A heart does not turn cold unless it’s been treated with coldness for a while”.

It was signed with a snowflake.

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