Thoughts on Winter and Snowflakes
With a single flake of snow, winter begins. Like that first faint shadow of twilight, we hardly take notice of it. Our lives begin with a single breath – and end with one final one. Spring begins with a single flower and fades into summer – and we hardly notice. Like our children who grew up right before our eyes, we hardly noticed until they left us to seek their own lives.
And all is as it should be.
A single flake of snow brings winter. The autumn leaves, glorious and majestic, catch our attention as we hurry through our lives. But that first flake of snow is the sentry of winter, and yet we pretend it is not. We go on about our lives relying on calendars and watches and all sorts of devices to keep track of seasons and time. Still, winter begins with a single flake of snow, whether the calendar agrees or not does not matter.
Calendars and watches are made by people. Snowflakes are not. Snowflakes do not need to know the time of date. They come and go as they will.
Today, a single flake of snow catches my eye. It is a dull, gloomy, and lifeless autumn afternoon. The air is chilly, but not particularly cold. My eyes follow a single snowflake as it wafts silently and slowly to the ground. My mind drifts back to another time – when the world was a gentler and simpler place.
I’m getting off the school bus. It’s the last day before Christmas vacation. I am nine years old. I am happy and running towards my little house, on a quiet street, in a small village not too far from the south shore of Lake Erie.
It is snowing lightly and watching it fall lights the childish joy inside me. It is a dull, gloomy, late-autumn afternoon – the light is weak and aching and tired. But to me, a child, it’s a beautiful and perfect winter wonderland, so bright and happy. It cheers me, and in its chill, it warms my soul.
Mom greets me as I open the door. She smiled and asked me how school was. It was OK, I think. She’s in the kitchen cooking. Steam rises off a big pot of something. It smells delicious. Everything mom cooked for us always smelled wonderful.
Dad isn’t home from work yet.
The windows of the house are steamy. It is warm and cozy inside. I feel a peace only a child who is loved can feel. Everything is right in my little world: no school for two weeks – no school buses -no homework – no teachers- no classes. And to top it off, it is snowing outside. It’s ten days before Christmas; I can hardly wait.
More time has passed than I care to admit since I was that young boy who came home on that last day of school before Christmas vacation. But I still recall the smiles and laughter as we boarded that school bus. I can hear the happy sounds of that day and the voices of friends saying: “See you next year!” as the bus chugged quickly away. I can see those scenes and hear the voices of children as clearly as if they happened yesterday.
But that was a very long time ago.
The days of our lives which have long since passed, exist only in our memory. That’s the only place they can survive. But as long as we still think of them, they still exist. Every “today” will be a tiny bit of a “tomorrow” whenever we happen to remember it.
Those who we love, even though they may have long since passed on, still live… as long as we remember them.
The single snowflake melts and disappears into a pile of dry, dead leaves lying in messy piles on the ground. Though the calendar says “October” – for me, winter begins with this first little flake of snow.
Winter begins when it will. Life begins when it will, and death comes when it will. Calendars and watches serve no purpose but to futilely count the minutes, hours, days, months, and years of our brief lives.
Time is relative. It plays tricks on you. Those two-week Christmas vacations from school seemed like an eternity when I was a child. A child’s time passes slowly and the years ahead seem misty, foreign, and endless; they stretch into forever. Children have entire lifetimes to live. They’ve only taken a few tiny steps on their life’s journey.
The older we get the faster time passes.
The older we get, the less time we have left to live. It does not seem fair. But, no matter what we think or say or do, time passes as it will, without concern for our age – and without regard for our computers, clocks, and calendars.
Nature does not care what time it is. In the Grand Design, time has no meaning at all. It doesn’t matter. Time and space are one great and thankfully, unsolvable mystery. And Somehow that’s a comforting thought to me. I can’t know everything which means there are always new things for me to learn. There will always be new things to discover, no matter how old I may be.
It’s just the child inside me — still yearning to learn.
Winter begins with a single flake of snow and ends with a tiny crocus working its way up through the cold, frozen soil. Winter begins and ends as it will and spring follows it just as surely as darkness follows daylight.
Autumn starts when that first solitary golden leaf flutters softly down from a tree – whether anyone is there to see it or not. In the Grand Design time is irrelevant. Nature cares nothing about time. Billions of “years” from now all our clocks, watches and calendars will have turned to dust, but a single flake of snow will fall somewhere. Winter will begin somewhere.
Life begins and ends as it will, and we can only watch in wonder as life is given — and with sorrow as life is taken away. Doctors meddle with the physicalities of extending the quantity, perhaps even the quality of life for a bit longer than perhaps it would have or maybe even, should have lasted. All our “miracle” medical technologies help us borrow a bit more of what we call “time”. Whether we borrow a day, a month, a year, or even a decade, it is an insignificant drop of water in the endless ocean of time.
The lifetime of a star is measured in billions of years – and we are lucky to live eighty years. The universe is hundreds of billions of years old – and we strut about proudly, as if our insignificant lives on this earth, in this galaxy, in this universe- have some great importance.
We are all just a speck of light – a single fake of snow – an infinitely brief and insignificant flicker – that quickly bursts upon the landscape of forever and fades without notice into the fabric of time and space.
We think we and our lives are important, but we are all insignificant compared to the magnificence of the universe. But then again, we are as significant and as glorious as even the biggest and brightest of the stars. Our lives though brief as as beautiful as the most exquisite nebula. We have as much right to be here as the grandest spiral galaxy – or a single, spring dandelion — or that first flake of snow.
We all are important. We are all part of the Grand Design.
If we look, we will find that the stars, galaxies, and that tiny flake of snow, are all intertwined. All made of the same stuff – by the same Wondrous Hand. Not one is less or greater than the other. Everyone and everything has a right to be here.
Mankind prides itself on its magnificent technology, yet we cannot even answer some of the simplest questions:
Where did the universe come from?
What caused the big bang?
Why are we here?
Why are there trees?
Why must we die?
Why are no two snowflakes alike?
Winter begins with a single snowflake – and ends with the first sprouts of spring. Beginnings and endings. A continuous and glorious cycle. Everything has a beginning. Everything has an end. And that is the essence and the beauty of it all.
There is an intelligent design to the universe and the order of things. At least I believe there is. Educators don’t agree with this. They think Darwin figured it all out. He may have gotten it right, but no one will ever prove it – at least not to me.
Maybe there are some things we’re not supposed to know. Indeed, the mysteries of life give it meaning just as darkness gives meaning to light – and winter gives meaning to summer.
And death gives meaning to life.
Just like that single flake of snow falling silently through the cool autumn air, we all take a single first step. And we all take that one last final step. With all our calendars, computers, watches clocks, and all other manner of devices – we never know when our last step will come.
We never know what time it really is.
We all see our first sunrise. And we will someday see our last sunrise; there was a first day we woke up in the morning, and there will be a last day we’ll wake up in the morning. There was that first time we planted a garden, and there will be the last time we planted a garden. There was a day in our life when we saw our first snowflake, and there will be a day in our lives that will be the last time we see a snowflake. We experience a first glorious spring day; and we will experience the elegant, soft winds of a first spring day for one final time.
And it’s all okay – that’s how it is supposed to be.
We can take comfort in the Grand Compassion – none of us will ever know when we are doing things for the very last time. But, just as surely as we all do things for the first time, we will all do things for the last time too. Many people find this thought uncomfortable; I find it exhilarating.
Everything is as it was meant to be.
All our calendars, watches, and timekeeping devices are nothing but inventions that help us keep track of the moments of our lives. All we can do is take the time we are given and do what we can to leave the world a little better place than we found it.
You can make the world a little better than you found it by writing a poem, writing a song, spending more time with your children or grandchildren, and creating good memories that will cherish throughout their lifetimes.
You can write your memoirs or special letters to your family. You can spend more time with your friends. You can create something with your own hands and give it to someone you love.
You can take photographs of your favorite places. You can build a fence, plant a garden, grow houseplants, make a video — do anything you can do to leave something behind that wasn’t here before you were born.
And no matter how small a thing you leave behind, as long as it is a good thing, it will make the world a better place than it was before you were here.
Leave something behind for others to remember you. You will always exist as long as you exist in the memories of others. And perhaps someday your children and grandchildren will think of something you taught them – maybe it’s something that will make the world a better place.
Whether it is a poem written on a tiny scrap of paper or teaching a child something to fly a kite, look through a telescope at the planets, or bake and decorate Christmas cookies; you can leave a part of yourself behind… and that will make the world a better place.
Winter starts with a single flake of snow. Tomorrow begins right now.
Your experiences can be brief and beautiful like that first snowflake – or it can be more subtle and endearing like the first flower of spring, reborn from the dead and frozen soil. Each experience is a chance to learn and each one is what you make it.
Beginnings give meaning to endings; yesterday gives meaning to tomorrow. The rain gives meaning to the sun; the dark gives meaning to the light; sorrow gives meaning to joy. Everything begins and everything ends and we don’t have to understand it to know that everything is just as it must be.
We are all just as much a part of this beautiful universe as a single flake of snow, the brightest star, the most distant nebula, or the most splendid autumn day. We and the stars share a commonality. Carl Sagan once said we are all “star stuff”.
And we all breathe the same air and we all share the same planet. We are all vulnerable. We are all fragile. We all have much more in common with each other than we have differences. We all are born and we all die.
Winter begins with a single flake of snow and dies when the first crocus pushes its beautiful head through the frozen ground.
And the universe is unfolding as it should.