Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Here in Ohio, we are blanketed with snow. Not the pretty "just fell down from the heavens" snow.
We now have the litter of nature and man mixed together snow. This mixture sure makes for one ugly mess.

I have a love/hate relationship with snow. I love to watch it snow in the evening. No matter how old you are, the first thing you are going to do in the morning is look out the window to assess what exactly transpired while you were sleeping.

Three years ago, I had to help our elderly golden retriever named Ralph cross the Rainbow Bridge. I cried all the way home. The first thing I remember seeing when I returned home from the vet was his paw prints in the snow. I ran inside house and closed the curtains.

A few days later, it started to snow. I actually screamed the word "NO!" and ran outside. I stood and watched the tracks slowly disappear. I mourned not only the loss of a four legged friend, but the last physical trace of his existence.

The depth of my grief at the time of his passing actually shocked me.
Sadly, it wasn't until Ralph died that I realized just how much I needed him the last few years of his life. It seemed as though the older my children got, the less they needed me. Ralph, on the other hand, the older he became the more he needed me to be his mommy.

When our last snow storm hit, I watched the snow and thought about the puppy who became the fuzzy old man who helped me raise three kids.
We now have another golden retriever and he loves the snow just as much as his predecessor did.