John Prine’s Wife Sees Nashville’s April Snowfall as a Sign From Her Late Husband

It got cold enough to snow in Nashville on Tuesday (April 14), and some residents did, in fact, see flakes — an already rare sight in the South — falling from the sky in mid-April. John Prine's wife Fiona was one of those people, and she's taking the springtime snowfall as a sign from her late husband.

On Instagram, Fiona Prine shared video of snowflakes falling outside, explaining that she was reading to her grandson when he interrupted her to alert her to the weather. "I must have expressed doubt but he said he was going to check it out. Yes, it was snowing," she writes.

Folk icon John Prine, Fiona's husband of 24 years, loved Christmas: He kept a white Christmas tree up year-round, Fiona says, and according to the Tennessean, when Prine was recording what would become his final album, 2018's The Tree of Forgiveness, he brought a similar tree into RCA Studio A (and later sent one to producer Dave Cobb).

"The colors, the lights, the idea of family, togetherness, bestowing gifts. It means a lot to him," Fiona once told the New York Times of a family trip to see the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. And Prine especially loved snow: "If it snowed in December, in April or November, he felt seen and heard and loved," Fiona says.

Nashville's mid-April snow came one week after Prine's death on April 7 at the age of 73 — "one week since he left us to figure out how to be happy on our own," Fiona writes. The singer-songwriter died after contracting the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in late March.

"I’m going to follow his directions," Fiona concludes. "Any day can be Christmas. Any day is a good day to be seen and heard and loved. And I will love you forever my sweet John."

In addition to his wife, John Prine leaves behind three sons and grandchildren. His family is unable to have a funeral at this time, due to concerns about the spread of the coronavirus, but they are finding small ways to honor him, they say.

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