Winter Kindness

The East Coast was just hit with a snowstorm this past Wednesday. We got about three inches of snow overnight Tuesday,  just enough snow to cover the winter-brown grass. A beautiful sight after a bleak winter. And it was packing snow: wet and heavy and just the right kind for making a snowman. The kids played in the snow and enjoyed their snow day. The boy across the street joined them. I shoveled the snow off the driveway, happy enough to be outside on the cold but sunny day.

Early afternoon the freezing rain started. My daughter checked the forecast; we were worried about my husband who was driving back from New York. Weather Underground predicted "a mix of rain and sleet will change to all snow by 5 PM. There may even be a clap of thunder before the changeover. Once the changeover occurs...expect a period of heavy snowfall to occur through the early evening hours across the entire Washington Metro area. Visibilities will be reduced below 1/2 mile. Snowfall rates of 1 to locally 2 inches an hour can be expected early this evening."

Soon after, we saw a flash of lightning and, as predicted, thunder. Within less than a minute, the sleet had turned into a steady snow. Thundersnow, it's called.

The thundersnow came down so fast that the snow plows couldn't keep up with it. The heavy snow brought down tree limbs and power lines; tall trees fell into the roads. Big trucks jacknifed. Cars slipped and slided. Others were stuck in traffic jams on the highways; the already long Baltimore-Washington D.C. commute times stretched for hours. Many people stuck on the freeway abandoned their cars and walked through the falling snow to a hotel or other safe place for the night. 

My husband got stuck in one of those traffic jams. For five hours. I waited at home. And worried. After the kids were in bed and the heaviest snowfall had passed, I went outside and shoveled the driveway. I turned on all the outside lights. I stayed up and watched television and sewed. (And ate through half a bag of Nana's Cocina tortilla chips.)

My husband finally made it home, at 2:30 a.m., and he told me about sitting in his car for those hours. He turned off the car, restarting it only once an hour to run the heater. He did some work on his laptop. He tried to sleep. He talked with some of the other motorists. Most of all, he stayed calm, cool, and collected.

And when he saw taillights lighting up ahead of him and traffic inching forward, he started his car and drove on through the snowy roads. He swerved around cars abandoned in the middle of the highway. He skidded only once, on a thick patch of snow that had frozen into ice. He told me he felt so welcomed when he saw the lights of the house and the cleared driveway. 

I'm happy to have him home.