Ice Storms and Lemon Pies

When your husband helps a man get his car out of the snow, and the man can’t speak English because he’s new to the United States, but he thought his tires would be okay because he had never seen snow before,

And then when the guy finds where you live and rings your doorbell to give you a hug and two lemon meringue pies for your American holiday,

It restores your faith in humanity.

It happened at our house.  I watched it all go down.  On day two of the storm, Peter said to my boys, “Grab your shovels, men.  Let’s go see who needs help.”

They plowed one neighbor’s driveway, the friend of ours whose foot is broken.  They plowed another neighbor’s driveway, a single mom who has stolen our hearts.  And then they came upon the man with broken English, who was stuck upon stuck.  He got duped into buying a minivan with radial tires…not that there’s anything wrong with minivans or radial tires… but sometimes, in an ice storm, that won’t do.

He’d never seen snow before.  He couldn’t know.

And so my men went to work. They even took the rugs out of my laundry room to put under his tires for traction.  (In the absence of kitty litter, I am told.  Also, you will never-upon-ever find kitty litter in this house.)

They dug out the man in the van, and he went on his way.

Can you imagine what they restored for him?  His transportation.  His way to get to work.  His livelihood.  His hope.

On Thanksgiving morning, our doorbell rang.  There stood the man, with a broken and earnest “thank you,” two lemon meringue pies, and hugs all around.

Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.