As the sun rose this morning, I noticed something. There was white on the ground!
Now granted, it was only a dusting of snow. Kind of looked like an artist gently brushed their paint brush across my grass leaving plenty of green still beneath the white.
I sort of have a love/hate relationship with snow. As a kid I loved it. My mom has pictures of me bundled up in my winter coat out playing in the snow. I went through a period of time there in my teens where I just flat out hated it. It was annoying and in the way, not to mention all the extra work of shoveling it and making sure to leave extra early so that you'd get to wherever you're going on time (i.e. school).
Although my feelings haven't changed in relation to snow when it comes to driving in it or shoveling it out of my driveway, I have come to appreciate the beauty of it and also the way people seem to find their inner good Samaritan during the winter. It's not uncommon to hear of individuals shoveling their neighbors driveways or sidewalks. Or even helping a stranded motorist out of a ditch.
Last winter I was driving on a back country road when I hit a patch of ice and ended up in the snow. Had there only been a couple of inches on the ground, I'd have probably been fine and able to just drive back onto the road. Unfortunately, we had over a foot built up, and if you live in a place that gets a fair amount of snow then you know how compact the snow at the side of a road is after it's been sitting there for days.
Luckily for me, a gentleman who a four wheel drive truck stopped to help. He hooked up a rope to the back of my vehicle and in a few minutes had me out of the snowbank and back on my way.
This was after the holidays, so this wasn't the 'Christmas spirit' at work. No. This was the winter spirit. The cold, harsh weather seems to bring out a willingness to help others even when it may not be what we'd normally do. It's the golden rule at it's best.
