Look outside

It's finally really truly winter. I had very little hope for snow on New Years day--it was forty three degrees and rainy. In Michigan, that's wrong.  I'm not really a fan of the cold, but I do love snow.  There's a fierceness to the sunlight in January and February that you just don't find in warm places.  When there's snow on the ground it's not even dark at night. 

Last year the snow was heavy and plentiful.  There was so much snow that my back yard was nearly filled up to the top step of the porch. Last year was the first year since I moved out of my parent's house that my Mother didn't call me to tell me to "Look outside." I used to look forward that little tradition, even though the older you get, I'd discovered, the less you really like snow. 

The morning after that first snow, I waited, but she didn't call.  I watched the flakes cover my neighborhood all morning from my kitchen, but she didn't call.  Finally, I called her, and said, "Look outside."

"Oh," she said. "It's snowing.  Now everything will be harder."
I
In hindsight, I probably should have known what she meant by that. When I think of the last few months of my Mom's life, there are a million things that I probably should have known.  She passed on her love of winter to me, and of snow, but she'd forgotten it this last year.  She only thought about how much harder it would be to get around in the snow, and the cold. I tried to talk her out of it, because I didn't want to think things would change. "You love winter. Just look at the snow.  It's beautiful this morning."

So I took this picture, and some others for her, so she didn't have to go outside to see it. 

I miss my Mom, which I know is to be expected. I suspect she was ready to go when she did, but that didn't mean I was.  It didn't mean that this morning when woke up I didn't wait for her to call me.