Today marks the 5 year anniversary of Winter Storm Atlas. I'll always just refer to it as "the blizzard" and to some extent, the timeline of my life exists before and after the blizzard. Those weeks and months changed me, defined me, shaped me in a way thats hard to explain, and still hard to talk about.
My first thoughts of the blizzard go to the utter devastation, and hopelessness, and helplessness that so many of us felt in those many moments after the storm cleared. And then the overwhelming, constant work that came next.
Just days before the blizzard, Larry Reinhold shared a message at the Stockgrowers convention about trust. I had no idea how much that message would become my guidepost in the year to follow. To trust that it would all be ok in the end. To trust that yes, I could do the work that was before me, and to trust that there was a bigger purpose to be revealed.
Now, mostly, I want to remember the good. The neighbors who helped one another without asking and without telling. The volunteers who worked tirelessly, the donations of cash, and heifers, and Christmas baskets, and boots, and bibles, and so many more gifts, gestures and actions that will likely never be told but will live on in the hearts and smiles of families across our region.
The abrupt change in weather these last days, has been eerily reminiscent of the way that the beautiful fall of 2013 turned deadly. I know a lot of families have been feeling the anxiety and stress of remembering the blizzard. I feel it too. But, I trust.
