It's Rainbow Time!

Every morning that the sun is shining, I sit in my living room and enjoy "rainbow time" - a myriad of rainbows scatter along the walls and ceiling cast by the prisms in my window.  Today, as I also listen to the construction of three, yes three, houses next to mine, I wonder if the new houses will block the sunlight and block or diminish my rainbows - hope not!

What is it about rainbows?  The science teacher in me knows that the prisms (just like raindrops) refract or bend the white light coming from the sun into the spectrum of colors that make up white light: or as we learn in school ROYGBIV (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).  Right now I see all those colors vividly in no less than 15 rainbows!  When conditions are right after a rain we see the arc of a rainbow caused by the light being bent by raindrops - so it is just science, right?

But rainbows are also Biblical - God places one after the flood in the Old Testament to symbolize His covenant with the people.  So, seeing rainbows can be a beautiful reminder of God's promises and His presence with us.

My love of them, however, is much more personal.  I received a prism from a "secret sister" during the time my Dad was hospitalized, had surgery, and died in 1995.  All that summer, and in the subsequent years of springs and summers, every afternoon when I walked into my kitchen I was greeted by scattered rainbows, bringing a smile.  It was like they reminded me that, although I was sad and grieving, there was also joy in remembering pleasant times.  Over the next few years, I obtained more prisms, so that no matter the angle of the sun at various times of the year, at least one prism would catch the light and break it into the glorious colors.

Then, when my world totally changed in late 2000 and the spring of 2001, the rainbows added another pleasant association.  Jim could not be outside during the sunny part of the day due to the chemotherapy, but he loved being outside.  He began "following the sun" every day inside the house.  He spent mornings in the living room on the East side of the house, enjoying the sunlight.  Then, after lunch time, he moved to the den on the back side (West) of the house, so he could enjoy more of nature's glory safely inside.  By mid-afternoon, when I returned home from school, the prisms in the windows were splitting that sunlight in its spectrum of colors.  As I walked into the house, on every sunny day, he would shout, "come on in, it is rainbow time!" So now, every morning, when it is my own "rainbow time", I feel like he is with me, reminding me of more pleasant memories.