A Snowy Gift

Now THIS is a snow day! I’ve been outside several times this morning maintaining water in the birdbaths, spreading birdseed across the snow, and snapping pictures. I don’t have snow boots anymore, so my rubber garden boots had to do. As I stomped the snow off those boots I was reminded of a snow storm forty-plus years ago shortly after my family moved to Tennessee.

That year the snow fell and fell while the city waited for salt trucks that never came. School was closed for a month. The street behind our house was a large hill and all the kids in the neighborhood gathered there day after day for wild sled rides and snowball fights. The air was always filled with shrieks of laughter. Daily, my mother would bundle up my sisters and me and send us outside to join our friends. We would spend what seemed like hours outside until we got too cold and wet to stand it any longer; Mom would be waiting at the door to unbundle us, dry us off and give us a bite to eat or hot chocolate to drink. Once we were warmed and replenished, we were ready to do it all over again. This was the routine throughout that snow month. And, of course, I thought this was GREAT!

I found out years later (per my father) that we drove my mother nuts and she couldn’t wait for us to go back to school. I know now that she had the patience of a saint