I’m sorry to be delayed with my post today. I have a migraine headache that I just can’t seem to shake. I saw that “snow in April” was trending on Twitter. That actually gave me the “warm fuzzies”. My eldest son was born on April 5th, 1996 and it was snowing that day (one of my favorite days in my life) in Pennsylvania. Sometimes when unusual things happen, they are also tied to beautiful memories. The “out of the ordinary” experiences serve as a touch point for events that we never want to forget. I know that most of us would like to get past, and to forget about this pandemic experience as quickly as possible, but I also know that it is bringing us gifts, too. Having lived for almost 50 years, I’ve accumulated a lot of experiences, and even those happenings that I deemed “incredibly awful, horrifying, and sad as hell” brought me gifts, if I dug hard enough. Mr. Rogers says to look for the helpers in times like these. I see stories of helpers everywhere these days. My latest favorite story is that of Tyler Perry (of “Madea” fame) paying for seniors’ groceries in about 80 grocery stores in Georgia and New Orleans. But even still, beyond the beautiful, selfless, generous helpers, are the internal gifts which come out of the horrific trials you experience. You learn a lot about yourself. You see beautiful facets of your own personality. You see that you are vulnerable and compassionate and yet, hopeful, resilient and strong. You see that you are able to comfort yourself and to challenge yourself and to protect yourself. You start building a cache of tenacity and toughness, and you keep that cache with you, so you can draw from it, when other difficult situations come around later on. You learn that you can trust yourself, comfort yourself, uplift yourself, forgive yourself, love yourself. These are the gifts that come out of miserable times and oh my, what gifts these endowments truly are, because like learning to ride a bicycle, these gifts come out of storage to be with you again, when the roller coaster of life, is at one of its deepest troughs. So I know that having snow in April can be quite annoying, but it can also be a marker for a time, when you learned about just how amazing you are and how even in the darkest shadow of times, Life is awe-strikingly profound and Love will lead the way. And many years from now, you can think back to that snowy April during the pandemic, that you survived through and you even thrived through. You’ll remember the gifts that you gained, these gifts being immensely wonderful insights about yourself that helped you to grow into even more of your own, purposeful, authentic self, than you ever were before.