This is why you won’t find me mopping up after the kids all day as they go in and out of the house with their dripping boots (ok, I have to do that part of the day). Even if it means escaping at dawn, I have to feel the flurries, hear the crunch beneath my own boots, and step out into the invigorating cold. So that’s what I did one year after the kids had finally exhausted themselves with their own snowy expeditions and dripped their way into the kitchen for a hot chocolate (thoughtfully prepared for by mom). My husband and I, along with our 9-year-old son Shmuli, headed for the nearby forest for a walk in the snow.
Snow’s pristine beauty is nowhere more exquisite than in its untouched form in nature. The quiet that met us among the trees made me wonder if the birds themselves were stunned into silence from their habitat being temporarily draped over.
I could tell that we all shared the same thought as we crested a hill and peered over a steep decline: Sleigh riding material! Nostalgia for me (ok and a touch of regression), novelty for my Floridian husband, and pure child’s delight for Shmuli.) I won’t say who and refuse to say how, but someone had an unfortunate spill. And eyeglasses went flying. Not just any glasses but the (expensive) frameless kind with wire thin sides. Our pleasant outing was overtaken by a frustrating search, as nearly three quarter of an hour went by, traipsing up and down the mountainside. The whole area was littered with pine needles which were the same exact shape as – you guessed it – the wire thin sides of the glasses. Every hopeful citing of something jutting up through the white surface ended up being just another pine needle teasing me. A few times one or the other of us suggested abandoning the search. Again we decided to join normal effort with evoking help from above in what increasingly seemed an against all odds possibility. Again we summoned up by memory what we could of the passage used for finding a lost object (I know. You’d think we’d have it down pat after losing so many things). My gaze fell upon another pine needle beckoning me to investigate closer – which I did – only this time it was the thin wire of the elusive glasses!
My dear husband shared with me the silent prayer he made just as the pine needle turned out to be the glasses: he didn’t want this rare and lovely outing to turn sour for me. I still believe to this day it was the pure thought for another’s sake which brought down Divine assistance needed in this episode.
I had just dropped off someone at the hospital, and I had a couple of hours before needing to return to Sharei Tzedek to pick him up. Delightful weather made a staccato appearance at the end of a long winter. It was one of those evanescent spring days that to me would make it a crime to remain indoors. So I headed toward a trail set above nearby Ein Kerem, for a quick paced hike.
In recent weeks, the quick succession of both blessed and challenging events had pressed me to the edge of my capacities: Wedding, Pesach, a constant flow of company, and then this serious injury in the family. My system seemed to run on a constant flow of adrenaline. I set out on a narrow, rocky trail which led me up through high grasses and wildflowers. The sun on my face seemed to flush away all accumulated tension. In contrast to the stuffy and austere hallways of the orthopedic ward, nature seemed lovelier than ever.