For This Winter Waiting

She stood outside, bundled up thick against the cold. Yet somehow, the frigid, blasting wind could still be felt on the back of her neck. She shivered. The sky was almost the same color as the as the snow-laden horizon. It all blended into that dull white color that only comes with the bleak of winter. As vast as all the gray was, it still seemed to smother her; the way the clouds hung low and the claws of bare tree branches scratched up against them.

 The grass that could be seen was charred brown, as if it had been burned by some spite-filled monster.

I suppose it has. She laughed to herself without humor, thinking of the havoc Winter had wreaked here. She felt a weariness in her bones, an ache forming in her soul as she continued to survey her chilled surroundings. 

And then….  

Something in the sharp, blasting winds shifted. Something changed. If she hadn't been so still, she might have missed it. There again, a scent familiar to her blew by. She marveled at how it could be possible amidst this icy, invisible current whipping her hair across her face. She breathed in slow and deep this time and there it was, unmistakable….

….Spring. 

She didn't know how, she didn't care. All she knew was that, without a doubt, the winter wind right then was laced with the slightest fragrance of coming Spring. That smell of dark, rich earth and shoots of new grass blades growing, of blossoms and dancing trees laden down with rippling leaves. It was all there; just the memory, the assurance that Winter would end. And with those few breaths, drinking in that scent…

….the seed of hope began to unfurl in her soul.