I grew up on the prairie of southern Minnesota during what I sometimes call the “Ice Age”. A time before NOAA made weather sound clinical and precise. Translation for anyone shaking their head: winters in the 60s and 70s meant snow. A lot of it. Blizzards arrived with little warning, just a blue sky turning gray and a sharp drop in temperature. School was closed for days. Travel stopped. We played outside for hours anyway, and when it ended, we waited, because we knew there would be another one lined up behind it. One January, we logged exactly three days of school. Snow was snow.
I realize how that sounds now. Like one of those stories that grows with age. Plenty of time to embellish, right? Nope. That’s exactly how it was, and somewhere I have the photos to prove it.
Fast forward to northern Illinois January 2026. Winters are mostly gray here, temps hovering in the low 30s, with little snow to show for it. So when it does snow, like today, you take advantage. You pull out the sleds. You find a hill. You go because it probably won’t last.
This was one of those days. Fresh snow. Three grandchildren coming to visit. And a newly retired grandpa looking for a way to spend the afternoon. By Illinois standards, it was cold, 10 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind chill of minus five, but all four of them dressed for it and headed out to the little hill on our property.
New sledding techniques emerged, looking like a mashup of surfing and snowboarding, with a few spectacular spills for good measure. Judging by the shrieking laughter, “sledding chicken”, one child flying downhill while another walked up the same path, was clearly the most effective way to have fun.
A walk through the woods followed, then the collective decision that it was officially too cold to stay out any longer. Hot chocolate waited inside, already poured, marshmallows floating on top. Three cousins, one from Minnesota, two from Wisconsin, came tumbling and laughing through the door, red cheeked and smiling, followed by their Grandpa Michael, also red cheeked and smiling.
But his smile was different.
Michael’s came from a new learning of how to relax. From playing hard with grandchildren without a quiet voice in the back of his mind reminding him of unread emails or unanswered texts. From discovering the discipline of being fully present, laughing without glancing at a clock, enjoying the moment exactly as it was, with the people he was sharing it with. That kind of smile is earned. And on this cold Illinois afternoon, it warmed my heart.
After years of pushing to reach this stage in life, these early days of retirement sometimes still surprise me. The difference is real. The days we once imagined now exist, and they’re gentler. Concerns remain, but they’re no longer shaped by clients, deadlines, or expectations that don’t belong to us. There is room now for play, for travel, for prayer, for attention to the things long postponed. These moments arrive without being crowded out.
And that may be the greatest gift of all.
Not the snow. Not even the memory. But the quiet knowing that when a day like this shows up, we have the sense and the freedom to step into it fully. And that, I’m learning, is how a life is remembered.
Until Next Time,
Catherine