The Year of the Snow Globe

Image by Mia-Maria Wikström from Pixabay

When I was around nine or ten, my younger brother gave me a snow globe for Christmas. Inside the globe was a boy pushing a girl on a sled (we grew up in Vermont). I instantly treasured that snow globe. It wasn't the expensive kind made of thick glass and a heavy base, but it meant the world to me.

I have thought a lot about that snow globe over the past year. It is the best symbol I can think of for 2024. On February 26, 2024 my sweet younger brother passed away. That was the day someone picked up my snow globe and gave it a good shake. And then on May 3rd (which would have been his 54th birthday) someone shook it harder - I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The interesting thing is that I felt like I was inside the snow globe for the remainder of 2024. The world went on outside, but I couldn't see past the blizzard going on inside. Flurries like grief, CT scans, MRIs, biopsies, chemo, surgery, and radiation continued to blind me. Just like walking through a real blizzard, I felt like I had to keep my eyes down, constantly watching where my  feet were going, to be able to save my own life.

Don't get me wrong, there were amazing doctors and nurses in there with me along with my loving family and faithful friends. But I couldn't read. I couldn't write. I couldn't wonder out in nature. Everything I love doing stayed outside the globe. I know a lot of people find solace in writing when facing a hardship, but I...just...couldn't.

Happily, since January 16th, the last day of my radiation treatments, the snow has begun to settle. The winds have died down. The bitter cold is subsiding and I can begin to become part of the outside world once again. The joy of the sled ride is replacing the chill and blinding snow of the storm.