A Toast to the Skiing Years & Legacy Making

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There is a photo wall in my mother-in-law’s house of their family skiing. At the center are photos of Brett and his older brother Shawn learning to ski as toddlers in the 80s, when they donned sunglasses with a strap around the back instead of goggles, and fuzzy hats with a puffball on top instead of helmets. One of the photos is when Brett was maybe 8 or 9 years old and Shawn was 11 or 12. They are both wearing ski jackets hand-sewn by my mother-in-law, Karen. There are also photos of each of them in action through the years – ski tips pointed together to form a pizza as small boys and later carving through fresh powder as teenagers who swapped their skis for snowboards. No photos of the resulting casts from launching their still growing bodies off jumps made it to the wall, but they can be found in photo albums downstairs on the bookshelf next to the fireplace. 

These photos all exist because of one person – their mom. She was the one who gathered snow pants and ski coats and gloves and skis and poles and made sure everything was ready to go each weekend as the boys grew. She was the one who packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and homemade cookies for them to eat in the lodge as middle schoolers. She was the one who was called when the ski patrol was bringing one of them down the mountain, again, after crashing. She was the one who made sure her prayers were tucked in next to their avalanche beacons as they drove to the mountain in Shawn’s truck as teenagers. 

Eventually, she watched them grow up and out of her house. She watched them get married and have children. She watched them gather all the gear that it takes to get her grandchildren to the mountain as often as possible. That photo wall now holds framed photos of both our family and Shawn’s family skiing at the same mountains Brett and Shawn grew up on. On paper, Brett and Shawn don’t have much in common. Brett is a physician in New York City who loves traveling and meeting new people. Shawn is a police sergeant in Montana who loves a quiet weekend hunting with just his son and a few close friends. There are two things that unite them though – they are excellent fathers and they are really good skiers. They learned both from their mother. 

So, here’s to the skiing years, to legacy making, and to a woman who raised two of the best men I’ve ever met.