Hope is alive

Yes, hope is alive this morning, and it takes the tangible form of pavement in all its rough, black and gritty glory.
After 6 weeks straight of sub-zero temps with and without the wind chill, we finally begin today the long, slow climb out of winter's abyss.
Oh sure, there will be more cold. There will be more snow. But, there is an imperceptibly tiny taste of the end.
Spring will come.
On a superficial level, the South Dakota winter is like an annual life test. It is hard. It is nasty. It is cold and it is brutal. It knocks you down, kicks you in the teeth and stomps on your back.
You scrape yourself together only to get thrown back down. Survival, at times, seems unlikely. You question your mortality, your fate, your ability to endure.
But, just when it feels as though hell truly has frozen over and you cannot go on another day, patches of pavement start to emerge on the street. The five-foot high snowbanks begin to recede. The thermometer climbs into the teens and low 20s.
And then, driving down Eighth Street South, I see the true splendor of the world unfold before me in the three simple words on the Medary Acres Greenhouse sign:
Dirt is coming.
The sun breaks through the clouds. My heart races. Tears of joy run down my cheeks. Angels sing. A renewed will to live bubbles up from the soul.
Dirt is coming.