Snow Days in Devon are Rare but ominous

My children know exactly when it last snowed in Devon. Every winter they wish for snow and talk fondly about those few days back in 2010 when snowed in Dartmouth, England. The snow brings happy memories for them oblivious to the backdrop of events that took place that year. I remember the first surprising flakes settling on the grass as we were driving away from the hospital when my daughter Ruby aged 8 had just been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Snow is very rare this far south and it seemed appropriately surreal. A week later the snow came thick and deep enough to play in. My husband, two daughters and I went tobogganing, ironically using the girls summer body boards, they took turns to pull each other up the steep field behind my best friend, Lisa's house. Lisa's four year old son, George and her husband, Stephen had made the biggest snow man I had ever seen. It stood nearly six foot tall and Lisa could see it from her bedroom window as she lay dying from breast cancer. Overall the year 2010 was not a great and we happily put it behind us. We lost a close friend, Ruby became diabetic and my husband Guy had a massive epileptic seizure on a walk in the woods alone with my 8 year old and 3 year old daughter. However thankfully since the epilepsy medication worked and Guy remained fit free. It was 2018 that the next freak snow storm came to Dartmouth engulfing the town and snowing us in completely for the first time since 1976. The children had their first real snow day ever and the schools were closed for 3 days. We took lots of photos knowing that this was probably the last time our town would see snow for a long time. Two weeks later on the anniversary of Lisa's death we were due to go to a close friend's 50th birthday party that evening . The anniversary was on a lot of our minds but we knew that the birthday girl had no idea of the significance of the date. That lunch time it started to snow heavily again. My husband was in the kitchen making us all cheese on toast for lunch when he felt a bit odd and within minutes of him calling me downstairs he was having a full blown seizure, the first in eight years and the ambulance drove through the snow storm to reach us. It all feels terribly poignant, snow falling on the way home from a tragic diagnosis, a mother watching the joy of her son building his first snowman from her bedroom window as she lay dying. A man falling to the fall convulsing as the snow falls outside and his wife worries about whether the ambulance will be able to get through. How much more poignant would it be if it never snow in our town, a town synonymous with seaside holidays, seagulls and ice-cream. Just an eery coincidence.