Wilson. Wilson loved to play outdoors. He loved to catch butterflies in the spring time and see sniff the sweetness of apple blossoms. He loved to leap with the grasshoppers in the summer. In the fall, he loved to jump in the leaves and feel them fluttering around him twirling down. In the winter, he would stretch out his hands and stick out his tongue into the cold crisp air, and feast on icy crystals.

If I blinked I could see through the winter shadows a young girl in a pink snow suit and white puffy hat standing in the middle of white. Goldi has her arms spread out and her nose pointed up. Every now and then she touches her nose to her mitten and sees what has come down from the heavens.

Wilson knew a secret about snowflakes and it seemed like only he knew the secret. He knew that each snowflake was different. He knew that there was no way to count each snowflake that fell. But he did know that every single flake he did see ( and that was many) was different. He knew because as he watched them fall, he wanted to save their beauty for all to see. So he sketched them. But they melted before he could finish.

Then, his mother gave him a camera. It was a camera with a microscope. He could zoom in on the snowflake and capture proof of what he knew was true. He took so many. It wasn’t easy. But he wanted to share his secret so that others would have the same joy in their hearts like he did when the snowfall.

“What do you see?” I was interrupting the precious hush of the snowfall but I wanted to know if Goldi knew the secret too.

“It’s it’s… like like a very cold flower.” she said. “It’s really really nice. It’s …. Prettiest- Goldi whispers the last word. It’s the best word she can think of to say. She is lost in wonder and is speechless.

“It IS the prettiest” I would say back smiling.

Wilson thought that snowflakes were as beautiful as apple blossoms and butterflies. He called them masterpieces. Most people didn’t care at first. But then, after he took hundreds of snowflake pictures, they started to look and wonder too.

One night the snowflakes were coming down so fast. There were millions and millions of them. Wilson was walking right into a winter storm. Wilson got sick and he died. But now, he is famous. There is a monument somewhere in a small town in Vermont. There is a book written about him too. It’s called Snowflake Bentley. If you read the book, you will know more about the snowflake secret.

Yet, this secret goes beyond the very fact that there are no two snowflakes alike or that they are prettiest. It’s a secret that puts anyone in a state of awe. Perhaps Wilson knew the deepest secret of all. I think Goldi knew then just as she knows now. The only way to know this secret is to be lost in wonder as you stand in the middle of the falling flakes. You have to believe even if you don’t understand. You have to believe that the snowflake comes from the highest Heaven where the one who makes them every winter lives. He makes them and with each one He whispers’ “I love you. You are mine. You are the prettiest.”

“He hurls down his crystals of ice like crumbs. Who can stand before His cold?

Psalm 147:17