There’s an old myth that whenever you have an extremely nice summer, then a bitter winter will be sure to follow, and when that winter comes around,  it will bring a giant white monster to come knocking at your door. The news anchors were talking about the winter storm coming for weeks, but as for the monster, I’d never thought he might actually exist.
 

As the night came, and time went by I became more and more anxious. The clock struck twelve and there was not a single peep in my house. Finally, I was able to tell myself, “It’s already midnight, and there’s still not a single flake of snow. The weather men must be wrong like usually.” Then I started to ease my mind by reminding myself of how illogical that old myth about summer and winter was, “Giant White Monster? Why did I actually believe him? Honestly it just sounds like something out of an old tacky horror movie. My Uncle was probably just yanking my chain like he usually does.” I had felt my face slowly going from pale white, to bright ruby red. I had just spent the last couple of hours freaking out about some scary story that there’s no chance of actually being true. It was nearly one in the morning, and I knew the morning would come about soon. I started to count sheep, “One Sheep.” Thump. “ It was probably just one of those rabbits or raccoons scavenging around my back yard.” “Two Sheep.” Crunch. It oddly sounded as if someone had just stepped in fresh snow, so I went to my window to check and seemingly, it had been snowing the entire time I was freaking out, and now the backyard looked like a winter wonderland.  I was too tired to put any more thought into this all so I just went back to bed, put a pillow over my head, and decided to just close my eyes, and I eventually fell asleep. I somehow managed to fall asleep with the idea of a winter beast slowly fading out of my head.

I woke up early in the morning the next day, and unfortunately the myth was true. However, instead of knocking at my door, he made he decided to wait for me in my driveway and I’d have to face him head on. He showed up  the day before my birthday, and my entire family was coming in the next day to celebrate. But just my luck, our snowblower decided to go into hibernation just as the big behemoth had appeared and would leave me to fight the old fashion way, a old plastic snow shovel. My brother was at a friends house, My dad has a  health restriction preventing him from shoveling snow, leaving me to be the man of family, strap on my big boy boots, and go take on the behemoth in my driveway.  I knew it was finally time for me to write my own David and Goliath story, I was a five foot scrawny boy going up against a ten foot yeti-like behemoth. I was chewing watermelon Hubba Bubba bubble gum, and carrying my little plastic shovel as I made my way towards him, and that’s when I saw him for the first time.

“Gulp”. I had just swallowed my entire piece of gum due to the fact I instantly knew I didn’t stand a chance. Sitting there just waiting for me, staring at me as if he was staring into my soul. I had expected I was going to have to face him eventually, but what I wasn’t told and didn't expect, was that he was personally going to be escorted to my house by the night snow plow drivers and would be waiting for me in my driveway. 

At first, I attempted to take him head on like a bull rush, running at him full speed, I crashed into him but he was way too cumbersome for me to be able to get rid of him right away. He just sat there with a blank look on his face, as if he was secretly judging me for not making a difference. My face seemingly started to go pure red, and steam started to blow out of my ears and nose. I threw my shovel down into the snow and barged straight back into my house.

“ I can't! I’m done! I hate you for making me do this the day before my birthday! Why’d you make me go out there, I didn’t even make a single difference?!!” I was shouting at the top of my lungs in pure frustration, to what I thought was an empty house. 

“ How long were you out there?” I heard My dad's voice suddenly get louder as he came up stairs
“ Like five minutes!” I tried to make those five minutes sound as long as I could.
“That’s All?” , I could feel the judgment in my dad’s voice could be felt from ten feet away.
“ I tried Dad! He was way too heavy for me to move!”
“Doesn’t sound like you truly tried, did you give it your absolute all?” , I could sense his disappointment and it was as if he knew exactly what my answer was going to be.

“No… But it’s Impossible! Have you seen the size of him?! I can’t do it!!” The words just flying out of my mouth. But as soon as I said that, I immediately thought I was bound to getting grounded. Getting on his jacket, My dad says to me “ Come on, Let’s go.”

“Go Where??” I was in pure confusion.
“Don’t ask, just follow and make sure to have your snow suit on” My dad surprisingly kept his cool about me taking out my frustration while talking to him.

My dad and I end up walking through the yard and get to the backyard fence gate.

“No...You’re not making face him again, are you?!” I instantly knew why he took me back outside. My dad walks straight up to the behemoth and made him look just like a simple small snow bank.  CRUNCH.  My dad tossed off the behemoth’s head like it was simply a shovel full of snow.

“ Nick, it’s called perseverance.” the word seemed like it was from another world, however in a unique way I understood him. “ Perseverance? What the heck does perseverance have anything to do with me not being able to shovel?!”

My dad say to me, “ Nick, when the going get’s tough, the tough get going.”

At the time I had never heard that saying before so I was extremely confused, “Dad, what does toughness have anything to do with perseverance?”

“ I’m not talking about toughness. What I mean is that if things are originally too difficult to do, then you just gotta try harder, think before you act, and give it your best effort; that’s what perseverance means.” My dad in the moment seemingly transformed into one of those motivational speakers from those Ted talks.

I stared at the snow white behemoth for about a solid minute. I picked up my shovel, and thought to myself, “ Let’s do this.” I don’t know whether it was my dad’s motivational speech, or if I was just acting on the combination of pure fear and adrenaline, but I was ready to face the beast for a second time.
I picked up up my shovel. Climbed up the behemoth’s back. And the battle had begun.

It took merely only five minutes, but I had finally slayed the behemoth. He didn’t put up much of a fight, but what he done to me would last forever.

While the behemoth was merely just a tall snow bank, that snow bank had inspired perseverance in me. Even though the snow bank caused great fear and frustration in me, I’ll forever be in debt to it. Thanks to that Behemoth like snow bank, today was the day I learned the word and trait of perseverance.