Regardless of the distance in time, the death of a friend on a cold winter's day can be a particularly sorrowful memory.

The sun was reflecting brightly on the snow that had fallen during the night. It only snows once or twice in the winter and then not much. It surely does get cold though.
As I started down the hill from the house to the road, the snow felt like popcorn under my feet and made a crunchy noise with each step.
I felt good. The cold was invigorating; my breath came out in little puffs of smoke. I pretended I was smoking. I would put my fingers to my lips like I was holding a cigarette and then I would blow my breath into the cold wind and the smoke would form. I had never actually smoked, but there isn't much else you can pretend you are doing except being a steam engine; or a fire breathing dragon.
I crossed the bridge. There were little patches of ice in the creek. It hadn't frozen solid yet, but the way I was beginning to feel it probably would be frozen by the end of the day or at least by next morning. I remembered one time a bunch of us kids were skating on the ice. We didn't have skates, but the leather soles on our shoes permitted us to slide a pretty good distance. I remember that I took off and ran to get a good start on my "slide", but instead I fell and my face hit the ice and I chipped a tooth. Most of us kids had long since moved away, including my two sisters. They had married and had homes of their own.
The limbs of the trees had been deserted by the leaves and now they glistened with the ice that had gripped them. Across the barbed-wire fences on both sides of the road the tall weeds appeared to be fragile glass wands, reflecting the rays of sunshine.
The cold was beginning to make me ache - especially my feet. Brown penny loafers have a way of letting some of those little icy crystals soak into your feet. Your toes feel the effect first. My nose was dripping, too, which didn't help much, since I didn't have anything to wipe it on except my gloves or coat sleeve. After a while you don't really care if it's sanitary or not.
I was glad I was in my teens and wasn't scared anymore by the stories that folks told around the pot-bellied stoves or on front porches. If I had been a few years younger, I would have a great apprehension about going by "the tree." It was a bare, gray shell of its former self. All the bark had fallen from it, or what ever happens to bark when a tree is left slick and smooth and weather beaten. It had a huge hole in it that no doubt some squirrel called home. So when, all your life you have heard that a headless horseman lives there or rides there or something, that big hole looks pretty ominous. Anyway I was too old to believe in such stories anymore. I think somebody must have read Ichabod Crane and decided to bring it closer to home. I glanced backwards over my shoulder out of habit.
The sun was really shining on the snow now. I guess that I thought that because I had turned toward the sun. My eyes were burning and I could barely open them enough to see where I was going. Looking straight down at the ground didn't help much either.
Well, I didn't have too much farther to go now and I was hoping I would last long enough to get there.
Over to my left on the rise of the hill I could see the gaping mouth of a coal mine. It had been years since it had last been worked. I remember one time a man had gone about a mile down into it and had been overcome by poisonous gases. They got him out though. He had done it on a dare, and he had been drinking. A combination like that brings nothing but trouble. It must have taught him a lesson because he got saved and has been a minister for a long time now.
Eureka! Civilization. I made it! Oh, let them be home. I am frozen stiff. It's a good thing I had planned to stay all day because it would take me that long to thaw out!
I wonder who the company is? Most people don't usually have this much company on a cold day. I wonder why Mrs. Ingram is crying? Maybe Walter had hit her or something. Everyone knows what a smart alec he is.
The front room was full of people and everybody was quiet except for a soft sobbing I heard coming from a huddled form in the chair in the corner. I looked around bewildered and then I saw it. My heart sank inside of me. I walked slowly toward the gray box with the raised lid. It was completely lined with satin. I looked through the veil that was draped over the lid and saw the body of my friend.
Someone was saying, "You knew she had TB, didn't you"? Somehow it didn't matter what had killed her, but why. She wasn't old. Death comes for the old people, not the young ones. She was only three years older than me.
I left and nobody noticed. I automatically took the shortcut home. It meant I had to walk across the hill and cross the creek without a bridge, but I had to get home quickly. The tears felt warm for an instant then turned cold on my face. The icy branches of the trees were striking me. I was at the creek before I actually realized where I was. Crossing would be tricky because ice was forming on the stepping-stones. I had barely started when I slipped and went into the icy water. It wasn't all that deep, but the hem of my coat and skirt were soaked. I had to walk upstream for a ways, and by the time I had reached the house, tiny icicles had formed and were hanging from the hem of my coat.
The fire felt good. My wet clothes were hanging on nails behind the heater to dry out. Mom wasn't home. She would be back in a little while. She was never gone very long. Then we would talk.