The Most Wonderful Thing To See

The world has been dead a long time. Our trees—so often laden with snow and ice—have been naked, gray, and lifeless. The ground has been cold. The air has been quiet. The waters have been still and frozen.

This is winter. This is the time of death, the tortured months, the lackluster days of chilly silence. Why must it always be this way? Why must everything die, every year—while poor souls such as I sit indoors, longing for the kiss of warmth, with nothing more to do than draw pictures against the frozen window?

My goodness, I don’t know. I only know that the months are long. The death is always the same. The cold grows deeper. And dimmer. And darker.

And then something happens.

At first it’s so tiny one might miss such a change. Indeed, if you were not a soul who has sat at a frozen window drawing pictures, it would perhaps be too insignificant to notice.

But it is there, just the same, like the rescuing dong of a faraway bell tower. Open your window and you shall understand. Oh, but what is this new scent? This faint, invigorating perfume?

But then it is more than the smell. It becomes the air—no longer heavy and vicious, but softer now and sunnier. Is that birds I hear in the silence?

Then the ground. The dirt and dead grasses and colorless expanse begin to change. Gray, brown, gray, brown—then green! Green, I say! The first green of the year!

And as if to clap their hands in shivering excitement, the trees begin to stir. They shake off their snowy burdens. They stretch and bend and begin to burst, until by and by, sweet flowers and leaves are everywhere.

“What is happening?” wonders the soul at the window. Climb outside and see. Take a run and a dance and a spin through the soft new growth.

Because the world is coming back to life. There’ll be new flowers and new birds and new dew drops. Everything is changing. Winter is scampering away in a hurry, as spring rushes in to spread her glory. Oh, isn’t it lovely?

Yes, it is that and so very much more. Ask any soul who has long sat at the frozen window. I do not doubt they would agree—this is the most wonderful thing to see.