Snowy Wishes

When I was in the fourth grade it snowed in Austin, Texas, where I grew up.  I remember it well because we got a day or two off from school and I was 9, the prime age for playing in the snow.  However, being a southern girl, I did not having proper snow-weather attire and my mother and I scrambled to find something I could wear while my neighbor friend and I made a small but happy snowman.  I did not care that nothing I wore was made for that type of climate.  And because of a photograph my father probably took, I remember the mismatched hand-me-down, gray coat I wore that day.  Along with some “faux leather” zip-up  brown boots I actually did have, gloves and a knit hat with a ball on the top.  Oh and sweat pants, because, hello those are WARM!

I am smiling from head to toe in that picture.  I was SO elated to have snow on the ground, on MY ground, in our front yard, that I could claim and use as I wish and well, just delight in.  It was such a rare thing where I lived that I figured it was some sort of gift that Mother Nature decided to bestow on us for an unknown reason and I was not about to question its arrival.  I wanted it to never melt.

The last two mornings here have been frosty.  As I drove the boys to school both days with K in tow, we passed some empty fields on the way.  The kids were so excited to see the glistening, white frost all over the ground, covering it like a light blanket. K started talking about sledding (so cute!) and G wanted to know when it was going to snow and B wished for a white Christmas.  I tried not to dash their hopes too much but I also told them that because of where we live that is probably not never going to happen.  B then begged me to move somewhere that has snow and all I could do was think about my own childhood, that in the winter, was full of the same wishes.

I wished so hard for sledding and trees and hills covered in snow.  I saw photos on Christmas cards or pretend winter scenes that I KNEW existed somewhere in real life, inside snow globes and wanted them to be my house or my neighborhood.  I wished for delicate flakes to land on my “nose or eyelashes”.  I did.  And one day, late in January of my 10th year of life, my wish came true.

I do hope my children can someday experience the fun of a “snow day” like I did almost 30 years ago.  Of course I want all their wishes to come true.  But it seems for now, frosty mornings will have to do…