February 12, 2010 7:03 PM
Snow through a child's eyes
Still snowed in. Two miles to the closest plowed road. Day Eight of DC Snow Apocalypse 2010. I think my kids just did a little too much praying for snow.
An excerpt from Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room
Coming from California in 2002, my children had their first introduction to the four seasons. They'd grown up with only two: some rain for six months, no rain at all for six months. In Virginia, they made the acquaintance of humidity, spontaneous summer showers, hurricanes, fall color displays, and then the best: snow.We were looking forward to the snow, as most of my children had never seen it, but our neighbors warned us that it didn't really snow that much around here anymore - something to do with temperature changes as the Washington metropolitan area kept spreading out to places like the rural community in which we were now planted.
So my children prayed for snow.
And, did it ever snow! Like the Christmas song written by Christina Rosetti, "In the Bleak Midwinter"
Snow had fallen,
snow on snow,
snow on snow on snowIn the rural area where we live, snow plows hadn't even cleared the road before the next snow began. Records were broken by the snow that fell our first Virginia winter together - including the heaviest snow ever for a rare White Christmas, and 30" in late February.
For the children in the area, it was like a movable feast - they'd go from one house to another - sledding at this one, hot chocolate at another, a movie here, a bonfire there. What a wonderful life it was! Every night I'd surf the internet to our favorite weather page, with nine-year-old Madeleine and ten-year-old Jonny eagerly looking over my shoulder for the forecast. If snow was on its way, Jonny would point to the snow icon and clap his hands gleefully. Madeleine would run through the house announcing it like a town crier - thus earning her nickname, The WeatherGirl. The next morning, if snow lay on the ground, we'd hit the School's Out website to see if school had been cancelled, which happened with alarming frequency - more than any local old-timers could remember.
It got so bad, that at one point after four consecutive days of no school, a neighbor emailed me to say, "Alright, already, I think the Curtises need to stop praying for snow or winter will never end."
Well, the winter did end. Most people heaved a sigh of relief after a rough winter of shoveling snow, keeping generators going, and trying to find parking spaces in lots with mountains of snow so high and so wide there was little room left for cars. We had even spotted dump trucks by the highways being loaded with snow to carry off because it wasn't melting fast enough.
Our family, having enjoyed a four-month ecstatic experience, was somewhat sad, but our souls stood slightly ajar for the next one. And behold, it came as we experienced our first real spring, when everything went from gray to lush green and our neighbors' houses were once again hidden. Keep in mind California's very different meteorological year - two seasons, rain/no rain - plus not many deciduous trees. Not many leaves falling in the fall, not many to come back suddenly and splendidly in the spring.
And then, as if God hadn't blessed our family enough with ecstatic experience, he provided me with this personal exclamation point:
I was helping Maddy find some information for a science report one day when we came across a website with the weather icons. Jonny [my son with Down syndrome, then 10 years old], who was standing at my desk looking on, pointed excitedly to the snow icon, and began jumping up and down with joy, remembering the snow. Clasping his hands together in a pleading way, he sang, "Pease, oh Mommy, pease, can we get dat one?" - in the same way he points to cool things in toy catalogues and asks for them.
By now it was summer, but Jonny's abstract thinking skills hadn't grasped that some things just are not possible, and even though I said snow wouldn't come for a long time, he kept clasping his hands and pleading, "Pease, Mommy, pease?"
And then it hit me: my son thought I was responsible for the weather! Having seen me order things on the Internet - much more convenient for a megamom than a mall - he'd thought when we were checking the weather reports that winter that I was ordering the snow!
It doesn't get much better than that - when God can send you a greeting better than any Hallmark card through your children. Jonny's faith in his earthly mother - even though misguided - reminded me how okay it is to trust like a child in my Heavenly Father. And Jonny's jumping-up-and-down-for-joy reminded me how ecstatic my experience is when my faith is utter and complete.
Comments
What a tender and sweet story. And, wow, so much snow, that year and this! I admire your wonderful attitude. Being snowed in can wear on your love of togetherness after the wonderfulness wears off...
Posted by: Loralee | February 12, 2010 9:18 PM
Barbara, when I led my homeschool mom's group through your book a couple of years ago, this was our favorite part...so glad to see it reprinted here!
Posted by: Cathi | February 13, 2010 12:02 AM
