Flurries from Heaven

“I glanced at the empty chair parked at our Christmas table, longing to see my sweet mother sitting there. It was our first holiday without her. She had passed from pneumonia early last fall, and I still felt completely lost. Mom had sold her house in Vermont five years earlier and moved to South Texas to live with us during her last years. Reliving all our Christmas traditions, cooking and decorating together had been wonderful.

“As I picked at my plate, my heart aching, my husband broke the solemn silence. ‘Remember how after Mom moved down here every year she’d wish for a white Christmas?’ he asked. ‘She didn’t even care that it was usually 80 degrees and hadn’t snowed in Galveston on Christmas in more than 100 years.’ I grinned, remembering how she would peer through the drapes, never giving up on that dream of getting a lovely blanket of snow.

“As we finished our meal and I went to the kitchen to get the pie, I glanced out the window and gasped:

White flurries danced through the air like ballerinas, twirling and spinning. My husband came in to see if he could help and stared out the window in shock. We watched as the ground began to turn white, holding each other’s hands, laughing and crying.

“True, it rarely snows in Galveston on Christmas, but then again, there’s a new angel in Heaven who really loved snow.”

—Renee Ramirez, 59, Galveston, TX