What year was this? Was it 2006? That was the year Gray got lost in the snow. Hamid had created these walls of snow from plowing the front walk. Those walls came up to my bosom.

Gray whacked the knob lock off the front door and took off outside looking for his father. I was right behind him. But, he heard his dad around the corner of the house, shoveling the driveway. Before I could get to him, Gray scrambled over the wall and disappeared under the snow. Naturally, he was immediately disoriented and went in entirely the wrong direction to reach either me or Hamid.

We could hear him crying for me. Hamid was wading across the lawn as I got myself across that damn wall. We could see his movement in the snow. I swear for all the world, it was like a Bugs Bunny trail! Every once in a while his little hand would pop up above the snow. Gosh, it seemed like it took us forever to get to him. I'm sure it was only a few seconds, though.

Anyway, we left Missouri in February 2007. When we left, the first snow that had fallen in late October had never melted. More snow just kept piling up. You should have seen the mountainous plow-piles in the parking lots.

Friends from back there said the mountainous plow-piles didn't all vanish until well into April!