Most people love the spring; the new life; the new hope; the promise of warm days ahead. Many more people love the summer; the comfort; the warmth; the hot summer days and beautiful, warm summer nights. For those people, autumn is usually a sad time, a melancholy time; of short days, and longer and longer nights. As winter comes, they feel like the year is coming to an end. They feel, in a way, like the year is dying; and

 

I suppose, in some ways, it is.

But, although for many people winter is a sad time, farmers know that it is necessary for the soil and plants to rest, and the planet itself needs to rest as well. There must always be a balance, all work and no rest is not good for anybody; even for the earth; though if they had a choice, many people would rather not have a winter at all.

 

But not all people feel this way.

The earth is full of many different kinds of people; some short, some tall; some thin, some fat, some smart, some not so smart;  but almost all of them prefer the spring, the summer and even early autumn to the winter. However, there was once a girl who loved the winter. She loved the cold, fresh air; the clear winter skies, and loved going for walks in the country in the heart of winter.

 

Her parents didn't understand her.

 

Her mother would say, "Why do you like the winter so much, Sarah? It's so cold, and miserable, and makes you feel so sad."

 

"Not me, I love the fresh air, the clear skies, the snowflakes and a certain crispness in the air. I love everything about winter, It's so beautiful!" replied Sarah, excitedly.

 

"Oh, we’ll never understand you!" said her mother, despairingly.

 

Every winter she would go out for walks in the snow. And she never caught a cold, despite going for walks on the coldest winter days; she never got any kind of illness, even when the rest of her family were bed-ridden with flu, deep in the heart of the coldest season.

 

Then one very hot summer, Sarah caught a cold, and slowly, but surely, she became very ill. Her mother wrapped her up as much as she could, and gave her hot soup, and made home-made cold remedies for her that her own mother and her mother before her had passed down through generations. But no matter what she did it didn't do any good, and Sarah got worse and worse and worse...