A few months ago, with the help of a very good and very wise pastor and friend, I discovered that the cocoon of shock that God had so mercifully provided me for two years had worn off. It was time for me to enter the next stage in this annoying grief process...the time to 'feel' it without the benefit of that blissfully numbing cocoon. Just this past week when my friend and I chatted, I expressed my impatience with this process....my desire to just get it over with! He assimilated this stage to a wound that, as it's healing, becomes frustratingly itchy. A PERFECT analogy.
Today was a quiet snowday. I've never outgrown the excitement of snowdays! Yesterday, in anticipation of an early dismissal, I'm certain that I was no more focused on 'school' than were any of the fifth and sixth graders in my building. And waking up this morning to realize, 'It's a snowday!!!!' was the same feeling that I've had about snowdays since I was in kindergarten.....a day with NO plans....a gift.
It WAS a good day. But as the day progressed, I began to realize how very, VERY quiet it was. And late this afternoon, as I watched the snowfall begin to slow, it struck me how perfectly pristine the snow looked in my front yard....completely untouched, but for a few random deer tracks. And there was that annoying itch again as I thought about what snowdays used to be like around here. They were NEVER quiet, and the snow only looked pristine for as long as it took to find the gloves and headbands and the sleds and the snowboards. As someone who viewed school as a major cramp in his style, I'm sure there's never been a boy who enjoyed a snowday more than Chad! So the perfectly snow-frosted front yard suddenly looked very wrong....very out of place.
Tomorrow, I will go out and disturb that perfect snow. Though I probably will leave the sleds and snowboards in the garage, I think I just might build a snowman! And I'll look for those three cardinals I saw perched in my pear tree today. I have a feeling they'll be back tomorrow! :)
Life is good......even if it itches sometimes!
Julie
