Let it Snow

Yesterday morning was our first snowfall of the season. I wasn't bothered.  The fresh snow looked so clean, the kids always enjoy it, and we were warm and had no place to go. In spite of my sore back I hadn't given shoveling a thought until I looked out the front window to discover two young neighbour boys clearing the walk and driveway. An hour later a friend sent a message that he had dropped by expecting to move snow for us but found it already done. While I answered his text, the doorbell rang and there was a letter left by a young man a few doors away who was volunteering to keep us dug out for the winter. With no work to do, I passed some time in my recliner thinking about what it means to be blessed.

That evening my thoughts took a darker turn as I watched a film from 2014, "Salt of the Earth" celebrating the photography of Sebastião Salgado who spent forty years documenting beauty and despair in remote places. As I watched a child in the Sahel dying in the arms of his mother, and scenes of destruction from the Yugoslavian war and the genocide in Rwanda, I felt guilty in my comfort.

It isn't fair. I am so privileged: never hungry, never warmer or colder than I choose to be, never fought a war, healthy grandkids with a promising future, a steady job before retirement, pensioned for the remainder, with medical care that has kept me alive three times so far. I could go on, but you can count blessings as well as I, and maybe you wonder as I do how to respond to blessedness.

Trouble, like snow, falls on everyone. We are blessed when people care for each other. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou, friends and neighbours. I want to be a part of the caring, and I want it for everyone.