Snow

Sunday night the first flakes flew.  Big and wet and fast, it fell and everything changed.  We drove by a field.  The crops still standing from the late harvest; now dusted with white.  The combine and wagons turning white.  It was beautiful.

Snow.  It is one of my most favorite things.  Sometimes, the sound of it falling is almost deafening in your ears.  As if everything pauses, and breathes, and says, "Snow." It makes the world say hush.  It covers the dead earth and hides it flaws; turns the ugliest things pristine and white.  It falls in your hair and sparkles like jewels. It glitters the ground.  It is a deep breath, a soft sigh, a winter song.  It is a gift.  Snow.  It softens the sting of the wind, eases the edge of the cold, colors the dreary and bleak brown of winter.  It covers the death and makes it alive.  Vehicles and bushes and fences covered, until everything is just smooth bumps of white.  It frosts the trees, the land, the tiny tips of the fence.  Even a spider web catches the small flakes.  Snow.  It makes the air feel cleaner--purifies with every deep breath. It wets your eyelashes and cools the tongue.  It swirls and whirls and blows.  Snow.  It is a present for excited little eyes that hurry to the window early in the morning.  Snow.  It gives you a reason to stay in, and curl up, and do nothing.  It invites you out, to play and dance.  It is a miracle, a gift of God.  It is snow.

I can smell it.  Hear it.  Feel it.  And it brings tears to my eyes.  Deep inside, my soul sings.  It rests for a moment from life's worries.  It sings out "Peace on earth.  Goodwill to men."  It's because of the snow.

One of my little ones turns to me, as we walk through the snow.  The crunching of our shoes filling in the quiet spaces.  "Mommy, this is my favorite time of year," and he sighs.  It seems sometimes, he has inherited part of my soul, that one.  I hate to disturb it.  The perfection of the snow, the moment.  But I don't want to stop walking, with his hand in mine, as it covers, and protects, and blesses.

Sunday night the first flakes flew.  It was beautiful.  Snow.