We say our goodbyes in the winter. We say our farewells to the little ones, the old ones and the ones no one expects. Winter is harsh on our people. Many of us do not survive, whether we meet death from sickness or hunger. We know winter is the time to say goodbye. Pavees have always lived this way, short lives, sometimes happy lives.   
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Mama always had hungry little children around her ankles. She had seemed too busy to be burdened with me. When I was young my mother kept her hair covered with a silk scarf. She kept most of her pale freckled skin hidden behind thin cloths of purples and sometimes yellows. I looked like my Mama, frumpy with wild red curls that sprung in every which way. We had green eyes, the color of clovers. She kept me close when I was young but as I grew she became less patient with me. She scolded me when I was slow or unhelpful. I was a clumsy child with a need for affection. "Child, you are just getting in my way. Why don't you go out with the other children?" Her voice was wrapped in kindness and sweetness. She hid her irritation well. 
Papa never lost his patience with me. Before I was able to properly crawl, Papa would tell me stories. We are the people of the land, living the life God intended. We were baptized in the rivers at birth and traveled along their paths until our death. We are Pavees. We are constantly moving, traveling, finding a home within our families and not in permanent settlements. Papa carried the youngest in a swaddle on his back. He tied me snuggly to him as we traveled the fields. As I bounced on my his back, a bunny in the fields of Ireland, Papa resighted what he could remember form the Catholic bible. "Love is patient, love is kind," He whispered, his voice silvery. The fields were emerald green. The rivers were dark shadows that we followed closely. There were few trees. When our community stumbled across a small collection of them, the children would climb them clumsily. We would pass a farmers lone house and he would curse at us. "Get outta her you damn drunks!" Papa explained that our people were not understood by others. We passed flower fields painted in hues of oranges, pinks and blues. I did not know where we were going, but I was always at home when I traveled with my Papa.   
My Mama always said to her children that our Papa was the most beautiful man in the whole world. He had deep blue eyes and blonde hair that reflected gold when the sun shone down on him. Mama said he was an angel, beautiful to the bone. When I was older Papa would lead me to the areas where he kept the horses and the greyhounds. The puppies stormed me with kisses, making me giggle wildly. The horses roamed in the distance: beautiful and unknown animals that we admired from afar.  Our growing family traveled with a sky blue carriage made of wood, the children painted stars and flowers on the walls. I had six older siblings and by the time Papa started bringing me to the greyhounds and horses, I had two baby brothers.   
  One morning after my fifth summer, my eldest brother and I raced down to the wide stream we had been camping next to. Little legs like mine could not keep up with my brother and as I rushed to the side of the creek  my leg caught upon a tree root. The root grabbed and held my ankle victim. It was near winter and as I fell beneath the current the sharp ice water cut through me. My throat burned as I begged for air. Black clouds crept into the corners of my vision. The golden rocks that lived on the bottom of the river bed looked like the constellations in the night sky. My brother, Finnian, told me that  he had panicked. He rushed through the water but he couldn't find me. Papa had caught sight of us. Finnian always said when Papa pulled me out I had been dead. I had been a chubby little corpse, with purple lips and stringy hair. My Papa pulled me into his warm jacket and suddenly I was a baby again. That winter everyone had been sure that I would die in that little blue carriage.   
When I awoke, we had moved to an empty valley that overlooked a glass lake. Papa carried me, although I was almost too big, to the lake one evening. I was still very sick. Mama wasn't so sure it would be best but my Papa insisted. He took me to the lake and sat down on the bank with me in his lap. His eyes had formed little wrinkles around them, purple bruises haunted his skin. His hair, long and in need of a cut, was beginning to dread. I put my hand to his face. I was always cold now and I saw him wince at my touch.   
"Papa, will you tell me a story?" I whispered into his flannel. He smiled. I could smell smoke on the lining of his shirt. He pointed to a hefty looking rock formation out in the distance. It reflected across the lake. With my father's guidance, I came to the realization that the rock formation was a castle, an old battered, forgotten castle. That evening, Papa told me stories about castles and the people who once lived in them. My brothers, my sisters, my cousins and all the other children of the community slowly gathered around us. Papa sat me down next to Finnian. He stood up and began to act out fables for us, stories he made up along the way. We laughed and we cheered at the story teller.  
That winter passed and soon it was summer. Summer was the best time to be a Pavee. We had more food, more light, more warmth and less death. We found potatoes and berries during our travels. We rejoiced as God brought food back to the earth. The children had been quiet during the winter: their empty bellies had left them with little to say and no ambition to do. But with the arrival of summer, they sprang back into action. They raced across the sloping valleys. They chased the greyhounds and learned to ride the horses.Near the warmth of the fires the children gathered in the evening to trade toys and sweets. When we passed open waters they splashed in the shallow pools. I tried to keep up, but I was weak, my breathing was sluggish and I soon fell behind. Finnian tried to help me. He carried me where the other children went and when he couldn't he brought me treasures he had found on his travels.   
Papa died the next winter. Finnian had been the one to tell me. He had been riding a horse, a speckled white beauty. Papa fell and never rose back up. After his death, my chest began to burn when I cried and my right leg stopped bending properly. Finnian claimed it was the cill in the air and lasting injuries from the fall into the creek, I knew differently. 
The years passed and I never got better. I caught my breath by simply packing clothes into our carriage or collecting flowers for the women's hair. I strayed from my Mama: she didn't have the patience or the time to deal with a crippled child when she had eight others to keep track of. I spent most of my time by myself or with Finnian. Finnian had married a young woman from another Pavee community. When he introduced us, he called her Caitriona. Caitriona looked nothing like my family: she had dark hair and tinted skin. She braided my hair and taught me to make paints form the berries we collected. Finnian had made me a walking stick from a thin branch that had fallen near their carriage. Caitriona painted it in lovely spring colors. 
Caitriona gave birth to a baby girl the summer after their marriage. She named her Slaine, meaning healthy. The baby was healthy, a chubby little girl with bright blue eyes like Finnian's, like Papa's. Caitriona showed me how to hold her. Slaine grasped at my red curls with pudgy fingers. Finnian wrapped the baby around his back and traveled with her. He would sing to her and resight the prayers our father had taught us when we were new to this world.
After her birth, Finnian had taken me aside. We sat near his carriage covered in a green canvas. He told me of the day Papa pulled me out of the creek. He had felt that he had not taken care, that it was his fault that I had flown into the piercing water. I argued that he could have done nothing different. He held my hand. His hair had grown long and was creating a curtain between our faces. Finnian told me, that he should have taken care of me that day, that he has been trying to take care of me ever since. Now he has a baby girl, who needed him to take care of her.   
I understood, Finnian my eldest brother could not take care of me anymore. He had a baby who he had to feed, to watch, and to love. That night I wandered back to the sky blue carriage of my childhood. I had missed it and I had missed Mama. Mama was older now. She was old for a Pavee. Most of her children would be of marriage age soon and she would spend the rest of her days with the other elders. It was night and I found Mama sleeping near the carriage in a patch of soft grass. She was wrapped in a long quilt. Some of her younger children slept around her, some had gone off. I curled next to her trying not to wake her. She didn't open her eyes but she opened her hand and I took hold of it. Her palm was rough from years of work. I whispered to her, careful not to wake the other children, "Will you tell me stories of Papa?" She didn't smile, but she began. She was not a storyteller like Papa, but she was enough.