Jack Frost, the Lights, and What My Dad Taught Me

When the Frost Makes the Lights

It was 21 below out west of Chicago.

My dad was born in 1907. He left home when he was 12. He got a job fixing shoes 70 hours a week for 50 cents. He roomed in a small house with a man and his sister. He did chores for his food and rent. When he was seventeen, he found a job working in 700 degree heat, silvering mirrors. It didn’t pay much, but it was work. On the day that Prohibition was repealed, my dad was 24. He and the guy who took him in opened the saloon this blog hails back to.

My never talked about being poor or cold. He told stories mostly about people and how they think.

Think smart, work hard, and take care of folks who need. He didn’t say those things. He did them.

I look at below zero temperatures on my iPhone, and I think of people like my dad who had, and have, life so much harder than we do. Can you imagine? I’m grateful for the heat I’m feeling. It’s been a while since I saw frost on my windows.

But I remember real frost and the frost that was just inside me.

I remember my dad and I looking out windows at how Jack Frost made the lights beautiful.
I’d look in his eyes and see those lights and myself reflected back at me.
I’d see what he was living for and what I was living for too.

Here’s what my dad taught me.
Own yourself and you own your life.

Head, heart, and seeing your light.
The frost can make the light beautiful.

Don’t let a little hoary, cold, frost stop you.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!