Snow Day

The house was always dark.

The only sounds to be heard were that of the hot air heat blowing gently through the wall vents as well as the cool wind rattling the not-quite-so-perfectly sealed storm windows.

And when the phone rang hours before wake up time I was never alarmed. In fact the telephone call was met with gleeful excitation.

The interrupted sleep meant only one thing: Yonkers Public schools were closing due to inclement weather. The buses could not run. And what could be extrapolated was that if Yonkers schools had shut their doors, so too had all the other neighboring school districts.

It was a snow day.

Like all the other kids, I had received a double gift: an impromptu day off from school plus playtime with the accumulated precipitation.

And when I opened my eyes Friday morning and looked out from my bed at the munnions of my neighbor’s windows, all I could see was white fluff piled at angles.

No phone call was necessary to determine the fate of this day.

So I got out of bed and invited Cosmo to stand on his hindlegs to peer out of the frosty panes on to the street.

His tail immediately began to wag as he excitedly  made the sweetest sound: Arrr!!!

Translated from dogspeak to English it means Whoa---when did that happen?!!!

He then ran down the stairs with his red ball in his mouth and rang the green bell hanging on my patio door. He begged to be let outside.

Upon release he leapt in and out of the drifts, ran circles in the yard, and licked the clean abundant snow.

And while I tend to see snowfall nowadays through the eyes of an adult: a transportation difficulty event—an inconvenience---a rate limiting step;  seeing the unbridled joy and unleashed spirit in my dog reminded me of only one thing: Snow is a gifted toy from heaven---- and children and dogs are the conduit of its grace.