This post is in honor of two mothers and their families who have recently experienced sudden and tragic loss.

Dear Winter,

Please stay awhile.

Please bring days and days and even weeks of heavy falling snow. Please blanket the trees and the driveways and the rooftops of the homes of these families who are grieving. Put the sun behind a cloud and keep it there. Let the snow blanket everything and bring a deep, frozen quiet.

Stop the traffic.

Stop the phones.

But please don’t stop the snow.

Cover the path to their front door so the newspaper and the mail will just stop. Let the darkness and cold outside match what is surely happening inside. Freeze the doors shut so they don’t have to face anyone.

Freeze time.

Numb their hearts and their thoughts and let them be frozen from the pain, for now.

I ask this for them, but also selfishly for myself. Because even with the faith that I have, I can’t understand or find any meaning in their loss. Just a dull ache in my chest that reminds me that motherhood deeply connects us all in the loss of a child, a sister, a husband.

So winter, I ask again that you please just stay.

And when you feel it’s time, please gently stop the snow and lift the clouds and slowly let the spring come…

And with the warmth of the fellow mothers who share a small piece of their pain, we hope that it brings them comfort.