This morning, the sky felt heavy - dark and overcast in a thick blanket of gray - as I desperately tried to explain to Liv why she couldn't play with her friends today or any other day in the near future. And while the clouds were able to hold the weight of the water they carried, those words were just too much for her slender little frame. With each tear that fell silently down her porcelain cheeks, my heart unraveled a little more.

"But I just got better," she whispered through muffled sobs.

*****

We'd already been doing our part. I'd kept her home and inside while she ran a low grade fever. For a week, she'd missed dance class and playing with her friends, when they came home from school. It's not easy to slow down, when you're ten-years-old and so full of passion for life and living.

But, by noon, the sun emerged from the curtain of clouds that had covered it and, even though it's still cool outside, we opened the windows for fifteen minutes to let in the light and fresh air. 

In the garden, the snowdrops are blooming, and they remind me that, just like winter, this new storm can't last forever. And when it's over, we'll bloom again, too.