Just the Basics

"At least 28 dead in Buffalo's worst blizzard in 50 years" the headline screamed out in black and white font. An image of a local restaurant coated with ice and icicles accompanied the article. It looked like an ice castle and would have been pretty if not for the somber message it was bringing.

Roads are impassable, people are without power, and the temperatures are sub-arctic. The winds are howling and the snow won't stop piling up. The rescuers are unable to rescue. I can't imagine how helpless this has to make them feel.

Holiday feasts grow cold and stale. Cookies and candies left untouched. Families sit near phones waiting to hear from loved ones.

This doesn't stop babies from being born or hearts to stop attacking. It does stop planes from flying. All flights are cancelled. No one is flying in or out. Even the Buffalo Sabres game has been postponed. The Buffalo Bills have been forced to fly from Chicago into Rochester. There is no way in or out of Buffalo. The city has shut down.

The blizzard hit with such ferocity that there was simply no way for people to be prepared. The forecasts were made, the weather maps were clear, but no one expected that the snow would move from rain, to sleet to blinding snow within minutes.

The driving ban was issued. The thruway was closed. It was whiteout conditions.

Again.

I call my parents to make sure they have all the basics.

My mom is 78 and loves to get out every day to go to Church and meet friends for lunch. She is a slow and cautious driver. She wears perfume and a scarf almost every day and would never leave the house without her lipstick. She is five feet almost two inches and she makes you feel taller just for knowing her. She will listen intently to anything you tell her, have you laughing within minutes, and remember all the details of everything you shared.

My dad is 82 and is the smartest, strongest, and most romantic man I know. He brings my mom flowers almost once a week. If he isn't bringing roses in from his rose garden, he picked them up at the store. He is the oldest of his four siblings and they all call him for advice, as do all three of his children. We all look up to him and not just because he is 6'2". He was an avid golfer up until a year ago when cancer hit and hit hard. The treatments took a lot out of him. He has not opted out of the treatments and we are all loving and appreciating the time we have.

And now my parents both have COVID.

In the middle of a snowstorm. Not just any old snowstorm. An epic blizzard.

I let the phone ring one time. This is our signal that I am calling. I give them one ring warning. I call once. Pause long enough for them to wake up from a nap, get up from their chair or sofa, find the phone, and then I actually call them. The system usually works.

Except when it doesn't. Once I gave the warning ring. Then when my dad picked up the phone anticipating my voice he heard one of my mother's friends on the other end. One of the "talkers" who never stops talking. She didn't mind that she didn't get my mom, she just chatted away for the next twenty minutes to my dad about the weather and the birds and the carpet and the hair dye gone bad and the car mechanic who broke her potted plant. My dad eventually called me back laughing.

But today it is Christmas. I try facetime instead.

"Merry Christmas!" my dad's face appears. He sounds all snarly and nasally. He is wearing two sweatshirts and a heavy flannel jacket. "Let me turn the volume down on this thing. Hold on. How do I use this thing? Wait a minute."

"Merry.."

"Wait, just wait until I get...okay, here we go.." my dad sets down the remote.

"Merry Christmas! So, you have power I see!"

My dad holds up a large glass with what looks like eggnog and shakes it at me. "I have Baileys on ice to keep me warm and we are watching 'White Christmas' to keep your mom happy."

My mom's face appears, "It's his second glass; he's happy to watch just about anything right now." She sounds worse than he does with her scratchy throat as she rasps out her words.

My parents are not big drinkers. And my dad doesn't watch Christmas movies. He is more of a cops and detectives show person. I'm glad he made the compromise to watch the movie with my mom.

My dad isn't usually a big talker. But as he is on his second glass, and he is watching a movie he doesn't really want to watch, and my mom can't really talk, he knows that the phone is all his.

I love when my dad feels talkative.

He shared this story about my brother in law's employee.

Justin's daughter was driving home from a college class at a community college when the flash freeze occurred just before the snow began. It happened that quickly to way too many people.

Cars and people were trapped in cars and places that they never should have been. One story was of a mom that went to the store for a fish for Christmas eve dinner. It was what she traditionally served her family for Christmas eve dinner so she felt she needed to go to the corner store to get it.

She thought she could make it there and back. Her red chevy got stuck in a snowdrift. She called her adult daughter from her car as she was lost in the white swirling snow. Can you please pray for me, she asked her daughter. She told her daughter that she loved her. She said she would need a miracle to be found.

Her daughter tried to locate her but couldn't. The mom was found on Christmas in her car.

She was dead. Her daughter thinks her mom didn't understand the enormity of the storm as english wasn't her native language. Her mom didn't hear the warnings. All for a fish. For Christmas. For her family.

My dad told me that Justin's daughter was also caught like this. She slid into a snowbank. She couldn't see. She couldn't move. She was trapped.

She got out of her car and made her way to the nearest house. She knocked on the door. Those people let her in. And that is where she spent the Christmas weekend. Come right on in, you need help? You need a place to stay? Come in, come in, come in. On Christmas.

People talk about miracles and the kindness of strangers. We read the story of Mary and Joseph each year going from place to place, stable to stable trying to find a place for Jesus' birth. And here, Justin's daughter needed a shelter in her time of need and those strangers opened their door and said, "Come on in, stay as long as you need. We have space, warmth, food, and safety. Come on in."

Stories like these make me realize that there are reasons to smile. Life isn't all death and dying. It's not all about the negative all the time. My dad, once again, and always, reminded me to focus on the positive. There are angels around us. We just have to remember to look.