The Gift of Winter
By Mary A. Flowers

As a child living on a ranch in North Central Texas, daily life could be extremely boring, but on occasion it was one of the most wonderful times of my life. A particularly memorable time was one winter morning in 1958.

My Mom woke me up saying she wanted to show me something. Leading me to the bedroom window, I looked out on brilliant white fields and a crisp blue sky that left me breathless. It had been cold for several days and overnight it had snowed about 4-5 inches. "Wow!" was all I could say.

As my brothers awoke, we huddled around the stove to stay warm and wondered about the day ahead. We lived way out in the country and had no phone. The decision about whether we would go to school that day was left up to my Mom. "There is no way you kids could walk to the bus stop in this snow. You'll just have to stay home today," she said.

"Yippee," we yelled in unison. After a hearty breakfast, my older brother and I bundled up and ran out to play in the snow. Our farmhouse was on a prominent hill that dropped away to rolling pastureland on all sides. We could see forever that day, all the way to the horizon. The air was crisp and clear and cold. The snow lay all around us, untouched by humans. It was too beautiful for words. We stood for several minutes looking out over the fields and taking it all in.

My Mom came outside to play with us, carrying our younger brother in her arms. "Let's go down to the pond and see if it's frozen over," she said as she opened the gate. "Get that pasteboard box I put on the porch and bring it with us," she told my older brother. Off we trudged down the hill through the snow.


 

Apparently the pond had frozen over before the snow had fallen. It was hard and had ice crystals all around the edges and snow was banked on one side. I would have been satisfied to just look at it but our Mom had another idea. She climbed the high side of the pond and put the pasteboard box down on the snow. Seating my little brother on the box, she gave him a little push and off he went, down the embankment and across the pond.

Not knowing what to expect, he started to wail at the top of his lungs and lay down on the box. We all ran out onto the ice to assure him that he was okay. After getting over his initial fright, we spent an hour or so "sledding" down onto the pond and climbing back up to do it again. We had no ice skates but did our best to skate across the ice with only our shoes.

After awhile we got so cold we had to give up and go back to the house. By the time we got back inside we were starving. Mom fixed us grilled cheese sandwiches, soup and hot cocoa for lunch and we spent the rest of the day reading, sleeping and having fun. Occasionally I would go out on our porch to gaze again at our gift of winter.