The ax was one of the few practical items my father left behind. Along with it and the saw, there was no evidence of his—nor any man’s—presence in our lives. My mother’s stories of him were sparse, sharp fragments that never spoke of love.
I envision myself at the kitchen window, observing her as she bends against the biting January wind, her knee pressed against a chopping block, the dull edge of the ax lodged in a log. Her arm moves rhythmically, rising and falling. I hear the striking thud of wood against the worn block, once, twice, three times, before it finally splits. Her jaw is set tight, her brow a landscape of either effort or frustration.
It’s ambiguous whether she swings the ax to detach herself from something or to express a silent plea for assistance. It’s not a faulty memory that keeps the answer eluding me, but rather a lack of curiosity about her life. As long as I can remember, she had been alone—with five young children—splitting wood and sawing logs. We dragged fallen branches across muddy fields, each child contributing according to their size, and she sawed them with a brittle, unused saw.
Carrying armfuls of split logs, she trudged indoors, bringing the dampness with her. She stacked the broken wood by the stove, where it slowly dried, relinquishing its essence, forgetting what it meant to be whole.
I eventually married a man who also split wood. When he departed—much like my father—he left no ax behind. Not that I would have used it. I had only myself to keep warm. Once I no longer feared marrying a man like my father, I found love again.
From my kitchen window, I now watch my husband teaching our preteen son how to handle an ax. Though I cannot hear them, I see their breath mingling in the cold air. I worry for my child. He isn’t strong enough yet to hold the blade safely above his head, and I fear he may hurt himself, never reaching his full potential.
This is a lesson in manhood. However, unlike my mother’s labor, theirs is not born out of necessity. It holds no more importance than our fireplace, whose warmth is a mere luxury for lazy snowy mornings, indifferent to the extravagance and the privilege of letting a fire extinguish itself, independent of wood and ax.
It has been many years since my mother taught me how to split wood; nearly as many since I’ve swung an ax myself. She has since passed, and I have no idea what became of the ax. Yet, I still picture her, wielding my father’s legacy and creating warmth from it. I can see her by the small, tiled fireplace, arms outstretched, pinning a flimsy sheet of newspaper against the grate with the toe of one worn shoe, waiting for an updraft. She watches intently for the flame to ignite, for that orange glow to shift into bright yellow behind the page.
She waits for the perfect moment, that brief window when the fire is strong enough to sustain itself but not so fierce that it consumes the paper. With a swift movement—like a red cape before a charging bull—she whips the paper away and steps aside.
Occasionally, she miscalculates, leaving the paper too long. The slight smolder at its center suddenly erupts into flames, and her children, gathered close behind her, grasp at one another until she has forced the paper into the fire, where yesterday’s stories ignite and transform into warmth, before finally turning to ash, light enough to float away into the ether.
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In summary, the act of chopping wood serves as a powerful metaphor for resilience and survival, connecting generations through the shared experience of labor and warmth. The lessons learned from my mother resonate deeply, reminding us of the strength required to navigate life’s challenges.
Keyphrase: chopping wood lessons
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