[jerH]

I hang up the phone and walk outside into the first snow of the season. The alarm system announces my exit with the familiar but ever annoying "Sensor 2 -- Back Door Open -- Beep Beep." I curse it for interrupting the silent snowfall, but it's only the first intruder. The sun isn't up yet, but the street is full of noisy cars on their way to the post-Thanksgiving sales.

The flakes are tiny, falling quickly, but not too heavily. Snow dusts the cars and then clings to the leaves that lay in the yard. The leaves aren't even all off the trees yet, this year has been so strange. The warmth and life of Summer clung for ages, and then suddenly it was cold. No Autumn for adjustment, just a cold front to announce the arrival of Winter.

The ground is still too warm for the flakes to stick if they miss the sanctuary of the leaves. They travel down, out of the sky, each on a one-way journey. They start far above, tiny little specks drawn onward through time. They accumulate body, colliding and merging with one another on their journey. They're blown this way and that by winds they can't fathom, let alone foresee or control. They arrive at the end when they impact the concrete, cold but not cold enough, and wink out of existence. Beautiful, then gone.

I walk back inside and my son greets me, woken by the alarm's announcement. "What's wrong, Dad?" he asks. "Why are you crying?"

I want to deny the truth and tell him it's the beauty of the snow.




In memory of my grandmother, Dorris Hager.
April 25, 1920 -- November 23, 2007.