Love Stories For the New Age

Catching Snowflakes

"Mommy! Mommy look! It's snowing!" The little girl squealed with excitement, tugging at the blankets that surrounded her mother.

"Mommy! Can we go outside and play? Please! It's so white and pretty and cold and I want to play in it!" 

Her mother didnt want to play in the snow. She didnt want to think of snow. She didnt want to think at all. She didnt want to be alive. 

Not after her husband's death that fall.

She rolled over in the large bed, so her back was to the exuberant six year old. 

"Mommy, please get up! I want to go play!" 

But her mother didnt want to go play in the snow.

Snow was her husband's favorite thing in the world, besides his family. He would do anything to have snow year round. And in their town in Texas, it didnt snow. It hadnt snowed in 23 years. 

"It'll melt and make a huge mess. It's probably not even a lot of snow. It wont be any fun." 

"But mommy it is a lot! I promise! And look! I even got myself dressed! See!" The little bouncing blonde said, poking her mother on the shoulder. She rolled over. She couldnt hold back the smile that appeared on her face. 

Her little girl had dressed herself in a pink and red striped sweater, purple and blue polka dotted leggings and brown boots. To top it off, she had a black and white snow hat. 

"Please can I go play?" She whispered.

A few minutes later, the little girl was outside squeeling and jumping in the mounds of snow that had gathered on the ground. 

For the first time in 23 years, their town had gotten a foot and a half of perfect snow. 

And her husband wasnt here to see it.

She watched her daughter through the kitchen window, a tear running down her face.

As she watched she noticed little white snowflakes floating down from the grey sky. 

The snow fall quickened, until it was at a constant, quick pace. 

The little girl in the back yard stopped jumping around.

She was completely still, looking at the sky in awe. 

Her smile stretched from ear to ear. 

As the little girl reached out to catch the snowflakes, her mother's breath caught in her throat.

She saw her husband in her daughter at that moment- the smile, the look in her eyes- it was a splitting image. 

For the first time in four months, the smile on her face reached to her heart. She knew, somehow it was her husband who made the snow fall.

She hopped off the kitchen counter and grabbed her boots by the back door. 

She went outside to help her daughter catch the snowflakes. 

"Thank you." She whispered to her husband.

Her breathe made smoke in the cold air.

"Thank you so much."

The two of them spent the rest of the day outside catching the cold, wet snowflakes that fell from the sky.