I don't know where I'm going with this tonight. I only know I must write it. Does the time or the climate have anything to do with it? I'm not sure, but this fourth winter storm since Christmas might encourage a reaching back, all the way to nostalgia.

There's a restlessness about me, and I don't think it's related to the atmospheric pressure. I am a little edgy about the weather forecast. Snow drifts and icy snow packed roads don't scare me to death, but I do respect their possible life changing power. Anybody who doesn't have to drive on them tonight, shouldn't. But I've driven on worse roads, in worse storms, and got home safe. So I think what's stirring in me is more than that. I do tend to flirt with nostalgia.

Strange how a thought, a memory can encourage it. Tonight it was because I read grand daughter Sarah's post, at her "In The Midst of it" about her little boys, and their leaving babyhood behind, to sleep in big boy beds. That Sarah ended her post with the wistful thought of putting the baby days crib back together for her son, pushing the next chapter of his life a little farther than a mom's arms can reach, that didn't surprise me at all.

My sons are much older, but the tendency to want to cradle them remains. I don't do that now, of course. except for grown up hugs, and encouraging pats on the back sometimes.

Certain things become the cornerstones of childhood memories. For daughters, Barbie dolls ruled supreme, but for the boys, hands down, and you probably guessed it, always, it was tonka toys. If I had to put something in a time capsule about their childhoods, those are what I would choose.

A few days ago, while we waited for lab reports that would tell us whether a son had Cancer, he and I shopped a little, to fill the time, and combat cabin fever the snow storms caused. we're walking down some aisles, looking for something, and there it was, a really big Tonka truck, almost yelling for a little boy to spin its wheels.

I looked at it, and remembered, and for a moment longed for when my son's life was about playing with toys, instead of hoping he didn't have a disease that could kill him.

While waiting for lab reports about it, I busied myself however I could, but my thoughts kept drifting back. Maybe that's why nostalga is so inviting. Temporarily, at least, it insulates you, like warm clothes do from the storm, so you don't have to be afraid, or cold.

I waited until I thought my son would be back from his doctor's appointment, and was about to call him, when I saw he had sent an email. It started out about maybe I'd want what was in it written out. The labs are all negative. I'm laughing, I'm crying, I'm praying out loud.

I folded the email, and found my old family album, and turned to a place in it where I could tuck the news, and I swear this is really so. The page I turned to had a picture of when my children were small, when this grown up man was about eight years old, and still played with Tonka toys.