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Every Little Thing by April Jeppson

The amount of snow we got this week was wild. Every time the meteorologists predict a major storm, I have that moment where I’m not sure if we’re about to get buried under 72 inches of snow or if the whole system will shift south at the last minute, leaving us with nothing but disappointment and an overabundance of bread and milk.

We’ve been burned before (preparing for the storm of the century only to get a light dusting), so now I have trust issues.

But when I woke up in the middle of the night and saw the snow coming down for real, I knew this one was different. By early morning, the wind was howling, roads were closed and every car in sight looked like it had been frozen for decades. The storm had arrived, and it was not messing around.

Businesses shut down for the day, and nobody even questioned it. Schools closed (which meant children everywhere rejoiced while parents everywhere cried), and people swapped out their usual routines for an afternoon with their trusty snow blowers and shovels. What surprised me the most, though, was the collective understanding. No one was online complaining about stores not being open or why the roads weren’t cleared in 10 minutes. Instead, everyone just accepted that we were all in this together. It was actually kind of refreshing.

Here’s the thing — sometimes, the silver lining of a bad situation is that it brings people together. Snowstorms are the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter who you are. If you live in this town, you’re now part of an impromptu reality show called “Survivor: Midwestern Winter Edition.” We all have to dig our cars out, clear our driveways and find out which neighbor owns the best snowblower (and, more importantly, whether they’re feeling generous).

There’s a unique kind of camaraderie that comes from standing in your driveway, holding your shovel, nodding at your neighbor like, “Yep, this is a thing that is happening to us.” People help each other push cars out of snowbanks, share shovels and wave sympathetically as plows come through and undo an hour of hard work.

It’s moments like these that remind me how strong community really is. In a world that sometimes feels chaotic and divided, a massive snowstorm is oddly unifying. We all suffer together, we all dig out together and eventually, we all bond over our shared trauma with a hot cup of cocoa (or something stronger, depending on how many times the plow filled in your driveway).

So, while I’ll still have trust issues every time the weather report calls for “a significant snowfall,” I’ll also appreciate the way these storms have a sneaky way of making us all just a little kinder, a little more patient and, for at least one day, a little more connected.

Albert Lean April Jeppson is a wife, mom, coach and encourager of dreams. Her column appears every Saturday.