This morning, I was thoroughly dismayed to see snowflakes floating down from a winter-grey sky. Spring in Minnesota can be trying at best: warm and hopeful one day, cold and unrelenting the next. This week has felt like winter.

This week was my Gramie’s funeral.

This week has been long.

This week has been hard.

This week has felt bleak.

Today, as they do so many times, my boys helped me see past my dismay: to remember the joy that is in the journey. The joy that is in transition; even this looooong transition from winter to summer.

As I scrambled to get our things ready for school/daycare/work, my boys ran out into the yard. My impatience with their disregard for coats or reminders to “wait for me,” vanished as I heard them giggle and squeal in delight.

“Momma! I did it! I did it!” Kai screamed as I caught up to them; “We caught snow on our tongues!!!” 

His grin was both gleeful and lopsided, as his tongue was still sticking out; and he waved frantically at his brother who was also spinning around the front yard with his face to the sky. Their delight made me stop.

And laugh.

And pull out my camera.

Because these are the moments I want to embrace and to remember. 

This morning I thought it was the snow that was to blame for my feelings of dismay, but that isn’t true. The dismay was my own. The snow was easily asking for laughter and delight; it didn’t taunt me, it was not willing me towards angst. On Christmas morning I would have found it beautiful, even magical; so why not today?

Why not every day? There are times in life that aren’t easy. There are weeks like this one when there is time to mourn. Ecclesiastes chapter three tells that there is a time for mourning and a time for laughing. Both have a place. But today the laughter of my boys challenged me to resist getting stuck. To remember that even though I might be anxious to move past winter, I shouldn’t miss the joy that it could still hold for me while it remains here.

To embrace the heart of a child.

And to find the ability, when April brings snow showers, to catch them gleefully on my tongue.