Somehow the snow is a little like Christmas. We can expect it. We can listen to the television weather and expect it. But still, when it comes it’s like a gift - a wonderful unwrapped gift - because it is the wrapping.

Doc found it when he turned on the porch light before dawn and the sheer whiteness of it came to him, and he smiled and let the cup of coffee warm his hands and the coffee itself warm his insides.

Snow – whether it’s an inch or three feet – tucks us in, he thought. It’s an act of love, covering each of us equally, as a mother would do. There should be an ordinance, he thought, smiling, that no one should be required to get out and drive in it, shovel it, curse it, until at least the initial magic has passed. Soon enough, we realize, it will be plowed into muddy strips on our streets and slushed into the gutters and our shoes will complain and we’ll have to be careful not to track it in the house. That comes later. Road closures … they come later, too. When these heavy gray heavens pull back to reveal the moon and the sun, the cold will come, along with the threat of ruptured pipes.

But not now. Right now, in the holiness of early morning, Doc had the best of the snow. The gentle, eternally silent blessing of winter.

It should stay that way at least through breakfast, he thought. At least through breakfast.

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