Wait for the First Snow

The first snow doesn’t always arrive with ceremony. Sometimes it begins as a whisper—almost mistaken for rain—until a single flake drifts past the kitchen window like a paused thought. I don’t rush to greet it anymore. I’ve learned to let it arrive in its own quiet way. So I just stand by the table, one hand resting on the back of a chair, and say softly, “It’s time.”

Not aloud. Not to anyone. But the room seems to hear it.

I put the kettle on. I open the drawer where the winter dishes rest—the ones with the faded blue rim and the tiny crack on one cup. That crack once felt like a flaw, something that spoiled a matching set. I see it differently now. Some marks aren’t damage; they’re simply the places where memory settled in. I take down two cups.

Though I live alone.

The ritual began years ago, though I didn’t yet know it was a ritual. That winter wasn’t dramatic; grief didn’t crash through the door. It just quietly settled in, like fog creeping into the corners and slowly dulling the color of things. I found myself one evening making a meal I cooked often when someone else still filled the space beside me—carrot ginger soup, fresh bread, tea steeped with extra patience. Warm, ordinary food that held more tenderness than I realized.

I set the table for two, without thinking. Some gestures are carried by memory, not by decision.

It wasn’t until I sat down that I noticed the second place setting—the untouched bowl, the extra cup letting out thin tendrils of steam into a room that suddenly felt softer. I didn’t clear it away. I let it stay there, quietly present.

That evening, I spoke—not to a ghost, not to the person I once shared this table with, but simply into the space where love used to sit, and in some softened way, still did. I don’t remember what I said. I just remember the warmth—gentle, almost like the room itself had been holding its breath and was finally allowed to exhale. There was no sense of being alone or being observed. Only a stillness that didn’t feel empty. More like a light left on in another room.

The following winter, when the first snow arrived, I did it again. Not from duty, and not to recreate anything. It simply felt like the right way to meet the season. Like leaving the door cracked open—not to invite anyone back, but to respect what had already been here.

Over time, the ritual stayed, though I changed. At first, it felt like remembrance. Then it became a conversation. Eventually, it settled into something quieter—something like gratitude. I began to understand that some chairs don’t hold people anymore. They hold moments. They hold echoes. They hold the simple proof that love once sat here.

People sometimes ask gently, “Do you miss them?”

My answer is always this:

Missing looks backward.

Remembering looks inward.

In the quieter winters, I don’t speak much at the table. I listen. The silence in those moments has texture. It doesn’t feel like absence. It feels like presence—soft, a little heavy, warm at the edges. The kind of silence you don’t try to fill. You let it rest against you like a woolen shawl. There is no need to explain.

Gradually, I began adding small touches. A sprig of rosemary tied with twine. A folded napkin across the second plate, even though it would go unused. One year, I lit two candles. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t need to. Some gestures don’t need translation.

Setting the table stopped being an act of longing.

It became a way of honoring what still lives quietly in me.

Last winter, something unexpected happened. After dinner, I poured tea into the second cup, and then, without hesitation, I reached for it. The warmth of the cup surprised me. It felt human. Familiar. I lifted it and took a slow sip.

It felt like arriving.

This year, when the first flake drifted down the windowpane like a slow-moving tear, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. The room had already welcomed it.

I set the table for two again. Not to recreate the past, not to hold on, not to let go. Just to acknowledge that love sometimes changes form but has never truly gone anywhere.

Some rituals aren’t meant to preserve memory. They help us notice what still matters.

And love, I’ve learned, is not always something that needs to be held.

Sometimes it simply asks to be seen.