It Always Snows On the Tulips

     I woke up this morning to about an inch of snow on the ground and with the white stuff still falling.  I know it won't last long because it's already about 38 degrees outside and the snow isn't sticking to the streets.  Winter time is a funny thing.  It starts to sink and then comes back up to the surface, bobs a few times and then goes down for the count.
     Having lived in California all my life until we moved to Utah, I find the change in seasons here fascinating and every year is different.  This year for example we were having an amazing display of fall leaves and I had been waiting and watching for the ornamental pear trees to change colors.  Their leaves turn the most beautiful colors, it is one of my favorite things to look forward to in the fall.  However, they are one of the last trees to change.  Just when they started we had an cold spell that lasted for over a week.  It came before Thanksgiving even. It ended our beautiful fall.  After that, the leaves that had frozen turned brown and fell off.  I was so disappointed.
     Now here we are waiting on spring time, waiting for those one hundred tulips I planted and we have snow again.  When I first moved here a dear friend told me, "It always snows on the tulips."  I have thought about those words of wisdom a lot since then and I realize how much of life is like that.  Just when you think you know exactly how things are going to go everything changes.  Sometimes it's big things like a job loss, or an unexpected pregnancy, or a death in the family.  Sometimes it is little things like a broken down car, or an illness.  Life can be hard and feel down right hostile sometimes, but the days pass and wounds heal and when you just can't take anymore something wonderful happens and it gives us hope that things will get better. 
     Remember my dear friends, "It always snows on the tulips," but the tulips do come.  Sooner or later, springtime will be here and the grass will turn green and the trees will bud with little leaves, the air will be warm and sweet.  We will know that we made it through another dark and cold winter when the tulips are here and the snow has past and we have sunny days ahead.  You really can't ask for more than that.