The Gift of Nicki Snow: Moms Group Leaders Remember … You are Leaving a Legacy of Faith, Friendship, and Motherhood. Your Work Matters.

This reflection is dedicated to Nicki Snow — a mother, wife, friend, and faithful daughter of the Church — whose courage, honesty, and unwavering presence transformed our Catholic Moms Group in ways we never expected but will never forget. In the snowy town of North Pole, Alaska, amidst laughter, questions, tears, and prayer, Nicki showed us how to live boldly, love deeply, and trust God even in the darkest seasons. Her story is not just hers — it belongs to every mother who has ever walked into a Catholic Moms Group and wondered if it mattered. It does. She showed us it does. 

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I would like to share a journey that my Catholic Moms Group has recently gone through and I hope you find it moves you as much as it has moved me and all the members of our group.

When I began my moms group, the very first meeting, one of the moms who came was a pregnant mom with 2 young children. She had recently joined our parish and dove right in volunteering for lots of groups and even the parish council. She was fun and outspoken and full of life. She was also really in need of mom friends and felt drawn to learn more about the faith she had grown up in.

This mom’s name was Nicki Snow, an ironic name since we lived in North Pole, Alaska, a snowy wonderland, and also because Nicki was not “snowy”. Nicki had long, almost black, curly hair and always wore black or grey. Her personality wasn’t dark though. She was spirited and fun and energetic.

As I began working through the Catholic Moms Group 52 Week Study Guide, meeting weekly, Nicki was standing out as a person who would make me earn my “leader stripes”. She questioned everything. She considered herself a faithful, lifelong Catholic. She never left the church and she was 40. Nicki followed all the rules her mom and teachers taught her and she never heard a lot of the stuff I was talking about in the lessons.

I was nervous a bit once I realized Nicki would be there, every week, to call my lesson in to question and make me have all the answers. I was not nervous about he apologetics part. I am bookish and nerdy and know the text book responses to most any question. I was worried about the human part. I can be blunt when I know I am right and have a hard time remembering to give grace and mercy and kindness to those who are asking questions to learn. Nicki made me sharpen my human skills.

Our Catholic Moms Group grew and everyone benefitted from Nicki’s questions, debates and her vulnerable admissions that the faith she was taught was lacking. She dug deep and shared personal struggles and found solace in the bold faith she was coming to embrace more deeply. We all grew so much during those first few years, welcomed many new moms, said goodbye to many others.

Our parish is located between two large military installations and has very high turnover. Nicki and her husband were here because he was in the Airforce.

In the fall of 2023, a mom in our group lost her infant son to SIDS. It was a difficult tragedy for the family and for our whole group. We all felt very vulnerable and uncertain for quite a time after. The mom who lost her baby taught us all an amazing lesson about Love of God, Faith, Mercy and Perseverance. Her loss and her beautiful testimony helped us all grow stronger as mothers and as friends.

Little did we know, we were all going to need those lessons and that strength to accompany our, now dear, friend Nicki. In January of 2024, Nicki received a devastating diagnosis of lung cancer. Nicki had served her country honorably as an officer in the United States Air Force. During that time, she was exposed to toxic burn pits in Africa and that exposure led to her lung cancer years later. 

As a wife and mom with 3 very young children, Nicki had a full life. She was busy and bright and a real force in our community. We all expected she would withdraw and step back from “life” for a while while she got treatment and figured out what to do. Nicki never missed a beat. She still came to moms group religiously.

She embraced her hair loss and further complicated diagnosis with all the life and energy she dove into all of her endeavors with. She was raw and honest and real with all of us about her fears and troubles and questions and doubts. She also kept us calm and kept us all out of despair. She showed us that cancer doesn’t mean you stop living, it means you live fully and embrace what you have while you have it.

Over the year after her diagnosis, we all laughed and cried and “mom-ed” together, better than ever. NIcki Snow, beloved wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, passed from this life on Tuesday, May 6th, 2025.

Just the week before, she made a heroic effort to leave the hospital and, with a lot of help from her husband, make it to the church to attend moms group. That is how much the group meant to her. As a tribute to the grace and love and faith she found in our Catholic Moms Group she asked “in lieu of flowers” that donations be made to our Catholic Moms Group. When she told me this, just days before she died, my heart nearly burst.

I have often wondered over the years, leading this Catholic Moms Group, if it mattered. I wondered if it was worth it to come week after week, year after year. I wondered how I would ever know if what we were doing there made a difference. My dear Catholic Moms Group Leaders, it matters. You are making a difference. If you are not a leader reading this, know that the moms make the moms group. The moms who walk into the meeting and share their lives are the yarn weaving the blanket of faith that warms the hearts of the leaders and the other moms in the group. St Nicholas Catholic Moms Group in North Pole Alaska will never be the same without our Snow.

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Photo of one of our first meetings, Nicki is the pregnant one on the sofa.

More recent photo of her with her husband; she looked better than she had in a year in the weeks leading to her death!

Camping photo of my family, the “little kids” only as the older kids were not with us.

Photo of us ice fishing.

The start of the Iditarod, a uniquely Alaskan thing.