“In case you have ever adopted a rainbow to its finish, it leads you to the bottom on which you might be standing.” ~Alan Cohen
There’s nothing extra exhilarating than driving in a Jeep by lots of standing water. With every push ahead, my buddy Angela expertly maneuvered by monumental puddles, sending fountain-like arcs of aquatic glory previous my passenger-side window.
This was pleasure to me.
It was a welcome reprieve contemplating the previous couple of years had unraveled in methods I by no means noticed coming. The truth is, this watery marvel, cruising by the quaint streets of the beloved seashore island I known as dwelling, was a uncommon outing for me.
I wouldn’t name myself a shut-in precisely, however for those who had noticed me out and about in latest months, you might need likened it to a unicorn sighting—uncommon and a shock to the system. Uncommon, as a result of leaving my home required one thing aside from pajamas. Stunning, as a result of it meant I had one way or the other rallied after a morning of ugly crying.
Lately, the ugly cries got here much less steadily, however getting out the door nonetheless required cautious planning and a wholesome dose of constructive self-talk. Angela, sensing all I had been by, didn’t try and fill the house between us with senseless chatter. She let the air breathe, permitting our hearts to settle right into a comforting silence.
And wouldn’t you recognize it? In that silence, as we rolled ahead over the waterlogged street, a rainbow appeared.
It was magnificent. A full curve stretching throughout the sky, untouched by a single cloud. We each took it in, wordless at first, till Angela lastly spoke the thought we have been each holding:
“This has to imply brighter days are forward.”
I nodded, hoping with all the pieces in me that she was proper. Not only for our group, which had been pummeled by weeks of relentless storms, however selfishly, for me. I wanted this to imply one thing. The universe wouldn’t place one thing so breathtaking in my path if life wasn’t about to shift in a significant method… proper?
At that second, though I wasn’t prepared for it, a tiny doorway of hope cracked open in my coronary heart.
Angela pulled into my driveway, gave me a type of deep, soulful hugs she’s identified for, and I stepped onto the sand-packed pavers, feeling one thing I hadn’t felt in a very long time: the risk of aid.
However aid by no means got here.
The following morning, I wakened anticipating transformation. I brushed my enamel, appeared within the mirror, and waited for the shift. After which it hit me. Nothing had modified.
Worse but, all the pieces that had as soon as shattered me remained intact, as if locked in a forgotten pause. My father was gone—perpetually. And as a substitute of the readability or closure I had hoped for, I used to be left with the unsettling actuality that some items of life can by no means be totally mended.
By some unknown power of grace, the years, months, and weeks main as much as our final conversations allowed them to be gentle, even heat. A reminder that the love we shared, although imperfect, continued to maneuver freely in each instructions. And nonetheless, his sudden departure despatched shockwaves by my household, shifting fault traces in methods I couldn’t management. Unable to bear it, like a sea turtle shocked immobile after a sudden freeze warning, I collapsed inward and commenced my retreat from the exterior world.
Then, there was my future looming over me, a clean slate ready to be stuffed. My id had been tethered to elevating my boys, however quickly, my nest can be empty.
I had no roadmap for what got here subsequent. I had tried to carve out a brand new path by writing and constructing a aware and self-compassionate group, however since my father’s dying, that dream and the power for it had pale.
My reflection met my gaze, unsure and hesitant. Fifty years etched into my pores and skin, superb traces tracing each laughter and fear, a strip of silver roots marking the passage of time, but I felt invisible in a world that had seemingly moved on.
What now, rainbow? What now?
And past the grief, past the exhaustion, there was one thing else.
Anger.
How dare that rainbow give me hope? How dare it let me consider, even for a second, that issues have been about to get higher? I felt tricked, betrayed by my very own willingness to consider in one thing past my struggling.
However as I spiraled deeper into my chasm of despair, one thing else took form on the sides of my soul. A fact so easy, so unshaken by my sorrow, that it stopped me in my tracks.
I lastly discovered the reality about rainbows.
Rainbows don’t exist to vary our lives. They don’t include guarantees or ensures. They don’t seem to be right here to inform us whether or not issues will get higher or keep the identical.
A rainbow’s solely objective is to light up what already exists. To take the bizarre and, for a fleeting second, drench it in colour. It doesn’t erase the rain, nor does it undo the storm. Nevertheless it shifts our notion. It permits us to see the world, and ourselves, in a method that feels momentarily brighter.
And perhaps, simply perhaps, that’s sufficient.
Possibly therapeutic shouldn’t be about ready for all times to vary however about studying to be with life precisely as it’s. Possibly it’s about making house for the total spectrum of our feelings—grief and marvel, despair and hope, ache and sweetness—with no need to power one away to make room for the opposite.
Possibly the rainbow was by no means a promise of transformation. Possibly it was merely an invite to see my life, my grief, and even myself by a distinct lens.
And so, as a substitute of cursing the rainbow for failing to repair me, I let it educate me one thing else.
That I’m nonetheless right here.
That even in grief, I can expertise awe.
That even in uncertainty, marvel can nonetheless discover me.
That even within the hardest moments, gentle doesn’t disappear. It refracts, scattering in methods I may not have anticipated however nonetheless can select to see.
And perhaps, simply perhaps, hope isn’t about believing one thing exterior will come alongside to avoid wasting us. Possibly hope is just the braveness to maintain going, even after we don’t but see the trail forward.
So, I’ll preserve going.
Not as a result of I do know what’s subsequent.
Not as a result of I consider all the pieces will all of a sudden fall into place.
However as a result of there’s nonetheless gentle on this world. Mild that’s lovely, redemptive, and multi-faceted, and I need to preserve looking for it.
Even within the rain.
Even within the in-between.
Even in me.
About Diana DeVaul
Diana DeVaul, MSW, is a author and seeker who believes within the therapeutic energy of shared fact. Whereas shifting by her personal season of uncertainty, she gives sincere and compassionate phrases to anybody struggling to seek out regular floor. Learn extra at dianadevaul.com.