Spring snow

I am a Kansas girl, through and through. So when it comes time for spring, I have certain expectations...thunderstorms, wind, warmer weather. Spring snow is something I have not yet adjusted to. That’s why a morning like this will send me into the doldrums.

This morning, I opened up the front door and was greeted by a yard full of the fluffy white stuff. It was all over the yard, on the driveway, and draped over the car, with a layer of ice underneath. Fantastic. We were on our way to swimming lessons, and I had to scrape the car.

“Ugh. Not more snow!” My audible complaint was overheard by my three-year-old son.

“I like snow, Mommy.” His words ignited a shift in my perspective in the way cute little child-like observations about life often do.

“Look, Mom. I see my footsteps.” Yet another heart-melting reminder about the beauty of things overlooked.

In that moment I recalled the story about St. Francis Borgia, whose travels in the middle of a snowstorm took him to the doorstep of a Jesuit house. His arrival in the middle of the night was unexpected, and no one heard him knocking on the door. The snow continued through the night, and he was not discovered until the next morning. All of the men who lived in the house were embarrassed and felt sorry that he had suffered exposure in the cold.

The rest of the story, in the words of St. Alphonsus de Liguori, is as follows...

“The saint however, said he had enjoyed the great consolation during those long hours of the night by imagining that he saw our Lord up in the sky dropping the snowflakes down upon him.”

My recollection of the story brought me back to the observation of my son who had prompted it. He didn’t think about the annoyance that a spring snow might bring. He was basking in the wonder of his footprints in the snow.