11:00 p.m.
I slipped
into my heavy coat, stepped out the front door of our house, and looked up into
the dark sky filled with giant white snowflakes floating downward. All around
me was a beautiful sparkling white blanket covering our yards, bushes, and
sidewalks. A wonderful sense of peacefulness seemed to surround me as I
opened my mouth to take in a few of the snowflakes floating by.
A smile
spread across my face as my mind recalled all the times that I played in the
snow after dark; and then my memories traveled back to a night nearly 5 decades
earlier. It was a time when we had little food nor many of the nice things in
life - we were poor!
My father
would come home from his day job around 5 o’clock, eat his meager dinner, and leave the
house to go work at a second job until midnight. Our car wouldn't start in
the cold air, so he walked the entire way through the frozen snow. To
this day, I can still picture him walking down the middle of the snow covered
road huddled up as best he could to stay warm as the steam from his breath
disappeared behind him.
Four or five
hours later, Dad would walk back into the house totally exhausted, but ready to
do it all again the next day.
At first, I
thought my father was trying to earn a few more dollars to buy us some extra
groceries. Instead, he was working the extra hours to buy me a winter coat. It
was the only present that would be given in our home that year.
So... here I
stand today in this wonderful moment of peacefulness - grateful for all
my father's sacrifices and a very special coat.
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