By Mary Slattery
Spring brings blossoms into the world. Summer sends forth a rhythm of busyness and purpose, Fall is full of blazing glory and winter is loooooooonng.
Laura Ingles Wilder is my hero these days. Come to think of it, she always has been. Her books were read over and over in my family growing up. Now as an adult I still use them as a mental reference to measure the grit and common sense that it takes to life a life of sustenance and innovation.
Winter is unfailingly a most difficult and dark time for me year after year. I hate the cold, I hate the snow, I hate how I can’t enjoy what I love to do most outside in the sun. I don’t have much to complain about though when measuring my trials next to those who lived through the Long Winter which spanned from October to May in the winter of 1880 and 1881.
During the long winter, about 36 blizzards hit down upon what was then Dakota Teritory making each month incredibly difficult. Survival was no easy challenge as wood and coal ran out and food became more and more scarce due to the inability to get a train shipment of commodities to the people of the prairie.
As much as I hate winter my life is not difficult. Winter will not last 7 months, and I don’t have to worry about much. Life is not hard. I don’t have to make firewood by twisting hay for hours each day with numb hands as they did in the long winter. Nor do I have to eat the same rationed meal of potatoes and coarse brown bread made from wheat ground by hand in a coffee grinder.
Nope, I’ve got it good.
Wait, not good. Great.
And as Pa tells Laura in this much loved novel:
“It can’t beat us!” Pa said. “Can’t it, Pa?” Laura asked stupidly.”No,” said Pa. “It’s got to quit sometime and we don’t. It can’t lick us. We won’t give up.”Then Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds could make it flicker because it would not give up.”
― Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter
Well said, Pa. Well said.
sweetridgesisters 