Every time it snows mom tells the story of how, when I was only a toddler, I jumped off the porch into the snow and disappeared. The snow was over my head. Our recent snow is the first time in my memory that we had enough snow for a toddler to disappear. I expect when all was totaled up, we had about 21 or 22 inches of snow.
In addition to the snow, we had record cold temperatures. One night we had sub-zero temps!
As bad luck would have it, one of our heating units was out at my house, so it was very cold indeed in certain areas of the house and my constant fear was that the electricity would fail, as it often does during winter weather. If that had happened there is no doubt that we would have had to abandon the house. But one of the many blessings during this time was that our power did not fail and we managed to hang on through the storm. It was almost 10 days that passed that we didn’t see another soul except for one neighbor who thankfully pulled our trash to the street for us. Such neighbors are few and far between, certainly another blessing for us!
Since I was still recovering from a broken leg, I could not venture out into the weather more than a few feet past the door. I didn’t dare risk another fall and damaging the work of my Orthopaedic Surgeon.
I never liked being trapped by winter weather … and this year was particularly miserable for me. And no amount of reading or watching television was able to release the tension. I just had to grit my teeth and bear it. While the rest of the world was enjoying catching up on their sleep … I spent several sleepless nights waiting for the electricity to fail, not knowing what would come next.
Southerners handle winter weather much differently than Northerners. We push it out of our minds until it suddenly descends on us and then we race out to the stores in search of milk, bread and flashlight batteries. And we certainly don’t know how to drive in the winter precipitation so the highways are often snarled and impassable.
But thankfully winter weather happens very infrequently down in the Delta. But I do have several memories from my childhood of snow. One good snow came during a Winter Olympics.
So, some of the kids in the neighborhood staged our very own version of the Olympics constructing snow trails down the steep embankments along the Bayou which we road over and over on our make-shift sleds. We even had a judging booth overlooking one sharp turn where a designated kid would yell out scores as sleds flew past. And we had a search and rescue team ready to help those who missed any turn along the path and crashed out into the undergrowth. This team was even trained in first aid.
Even though there was only a handful of us, and very often it was just me and my best friend at the time Hank, we managed to have an interesting life and were always finding ways to create our playground from nature. Without phones, iPads or computers, we found our pleasure in trudging through the woods in search of unique trees, discarded junk or unusual landmarks. It was all fair game for our creativity and we certainly enjoyed unleashing it on the neighborhood.
My, how these many years later I have such distinctly different emotions about snow. This year: stress, gloom, and doom; as a child: fun, creativity, excitement. The snow has melted away, and returned from where it came, but the winter blues are still hanging around my door … as day after day of rain continues.
But we only move forward, and we must take what we are given and make the best. And I can definitely say that we were blessed during these most recent record-breaking snows. God kept his provisional hand upon us and I am thankful for his tender care! We managed to stay warm and the electricity never failed once.
Even when I’m filled with fear and doubt he is watching over me and nudging me forward!
The Struggle to Be Known 