There’s a pattern in humanity that exposes our mortality: we eternalize our greatest achievements into stone. The flag on the moon and Mount Rushmore are media to prove our existence as sacred. But most of us meager beings make do with a lesser canvas: snow. That isn’t to say our snow angels are not beautiful. We wait for the specks of transitory paper to sprinkle down from the heavens. When the white sheet is complete, we begin to create. We are paintbrushes. The porcelain paint caresses our flapping arms. We flail back and forth, creating streaks of embossed miniature trenches on the angel’s robe. Even after the imprint is indented into the powdery ice crystals, we keep going. The edges of our imperfections must be smoothed over. Layer over layer. Coat over coat. Our brush strokes are idiosyncratic.

We will not stop hallowing this earth until we are sure that we are worthy of being imposed on it. Once we are satisfied, we get up to see our masterpiece. The small ripples and curves form God’s perfect creation. We’re jealous of the angels. They have no choice but to be innately good. Because we can’t sculpt ourselves into beings of light, we use snow. But our snow angels are lovely shadows. They are more than fingerprints. They are hollow outlines that have the stern beauty to name an absence wholly. We pretend the craters we just created will immortalize us.Throughout the world, we leave our ghosts behind, haunting the oblivion away.