Alive

I grew up in Wisconsin, where winters were long, frigid, and white. Then my family moved to Texas, where we would rush outside to watch the snow fall for the few minutes before we watched it melt. A year later we moved to Missouri, and then to North Carolina, where the winters were beautiful but never as majestic and the snow never as deep as in Wisconsin.

But this year? We got snow. Serious snow. The hey let’s go outside and build a snowman and have a snowball fight and then come back inside and make snow ice cream kind of snow.

It was perfection.

Last night there was a giant snowball fight on center campus. A couple of my friends and I excitedly joined. Quick! Bundle up! Oh goodness I don’t have gloves. Do you have extra gloves?! Oh my word your hands are so tiny how do you wear these I can barely move my fingers. Eh, whatevs. Oh my word RUN!

And pretty soon we were outside, throwing snowballs at strangers but goodness I have so many layers on they probably don’t know who I am. After the fight we walked up to a hill where some kind souls we’d never even met let us use their sled. Turns out sledding really is as fun as I thought when I was five.

I remember walking up to that hill, looking up in the sky and watching snow fall down, spinning in circles thinking life is beautiful.

Recently, a young girl lost her life. Her name was Madison Baird. I never met her, but she went to Walla Walla University and the news spread like wildfire. She was hit while riding her bike into the sunset. She was twenty.

I’m twenty.

I watched a video that her friends compiled for her funeral. They talked of what an incredible person she was: warm, always smiling, vibrant, full of love for strangers, showing God constantly and everywhere.

I read the newspaper her school dedicated to her. They spoke of how she was a rare jewel, a bright light on campus. She was pursuing a career in nutrition and dietetics. I read her blog and she wanted to have a good husband, lots of kids, and a house with a red door. She was beautiful, intelligent, athletic, passionate, and lit up the room.

I have been inspired by Madison and I never even met her.

Tonight my roommates and I were talking about how there are so many questions in life. Why do some people die and others don’t? Why can someone so good and kind who lives life to the fullest have it taken away? Why can life seem so unfair?

The only answer I can think of right now is that there isn’t an ultimate answer. At least not that I can understand. That is far beyond my grasp, beyond my reach. I can make no sense of it.

But what I do know? This is the life I have now. This is who I am and where I am. And I want to shine like Madison did.

Sledding down the hill, surrounded by my friends, white snow falling from the sky, thankful to be breathing and feeling and experiencing and alive.