With our area’s ice, sleet, snow, and below normal temperatures, many things have come to a halt. Schools, childcare facilities, medical practices, businesses, service organizations, and churches have been closed or opened only for limited hours.  For some people, these unexpected holidays are wonderful. They are a time to catch up on reading, clean out closets, play outdoors with children, and drink lots of hot chocolate.

However, for others, this weather may well make a shaky situation even worse. Hourly workers who were barely getting by before have now lost hours and hours of work and money.  Heating bills which were already stretching a family’s resources may now be totally out of reach. Postponed medical procedures may cause even greater medical problems. Closed child care facilities may mean that even if one’s employer was open in the bad weather, the employee still could not work.  Non-negotiable roads may have made flimsy transportation solutions impossible.

Some of us may have lost income during these weeks of bad weather but we may not be pushed over the edge like some of our neighbors will be.  What will now happen for you, for me, for them?