It was the biggest snow storm of the century and a promise to learn and to pray the rosary everyday.
January 7th, 1996, still Christmas to me, NY had the biggest snow storm of the century, I was told. It was The blizzard of 1996. From this storm, I made my promise to learn to pray the rosary if God brings us home safe and sound.
I have children and a baby in the car, driving across the longest bridge called the Tappan Zee bridge. From there, I looked up in heaven and I prayed. I said, “Dear God, if you bring us home safe and sound, I promise you that I will learn to pray the rosary and pray it everyday.”
It was a sunny day. We drove across the Tappan Zee bridge from Rockland to the Bronx to have dinner at my mom’s with my husband and the kids. It took about 1/2 hour to drive.
When we parked the car and looked up at the sky, it started to look a little cloudy. We went upstairs to my mom and she cooked a beautiful dinner. However, my husband is urging us to finish fast and have to leave as soon as possible because the biggest storm of the century is coming. I didn’t know.
See in NY, we always have snow storms. We always have bad weather. So, I didn’t pay much attention to him. To me, it was just another snow storm. But one thing for sure, we are driving home in the storm with the kids and baby for half an hour and across the Hudson river over the longest bridge, yes, we have to leave soon. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of all that bad weather.
So, as soon as we finished dinner, we packed up and left. By then, the snow flurry had started. We got in the car fast and started driving. Soon after we started driving, I saw cars stopped on the side of the road trying to wipe the snow off the windshield.
At this point, like a few minutes after we started, my husband was driving with one hand with the window open and smacking the fast moving windshield wiper as hard as he could. Meantime, the snow accumulated fast on the windshield and froze with thick snow on the windshield and the wiper was having a hard time wiping.
I said to my husband that we need to stop and get rid of the iced up snow off the windshield. He replied, “No! If we stopped, the car would not start like those people’s cars stuck on the side of the road now because they stopped to get the snow off the windshield.” He continued, “Because it is so cold that once you stop, the car will not move.” I noticed the snow accumulated very fast and very thick on the road. And the temperature dropped so fast and it was freezing in the car, especially with my husband driving with the window opened.
At this time, he was at the Tappan Zee bridge. I was so worried that the car would stop in the middle of the bridge like those other people who did and they were stuck in the bridge.
I looked up at the sky and I said to the Lord, “Dear, God, please bring us home safe and sound. I promise you that I will learn to pray the rosary and pray it everyday.” I kept praying and praying looking up at the sky and praying and praying. I then realized that my husband pulled up in front of the house that we were living in. We made it home.
I still remember vividly that memory of seeing the front door in front of the car. My husband stopped the car. Turned off the engine and rush all of us in the house with all the kids a
nd the baby.