Oh, What a Night!

The other evening I took Maggie Minx for her 29^th walk of the day (this is only a slight exaggeration), and I happened to glance up at the sky. It was one of the most beautiful sunsets I think I’ve ever seen in Westerville, Ohio.

I was barely able to snap a quick photo before our abnormally strong 10 pound dog dragged me on our way. If she’s out, she could care less about the pretty sunsets. She just wants to sniff and leave some pee mail for her fellow canines as if to say: “Maggie Was Here.”

Like most of the neighborhood doesn’t know that Maggie. Was. Here. She can be rather, uh, vociferous on occasion. No one would ever deem her the shy, retiring type.

Anyway, back to the sunset.

On the way back to the house, I managed to snap another shot and this one may have been even prettier.

 

Not only that, but I glanced in another direction – and I saw a faint rainbow. Which made me think of my dad.

After my dad fell and hit his head in June of 2016, I drove my mom to Canton to visit him after he had been admitted to the ICU. This was the beginning of a three week odyssey of ups and downs and progression and regression that ultimately ended with his death.

But that first night, he was awake and alert and we had hope even though he looked awful and we were so very worried about him.

On the drive back home to Alliance, there was an incredible double rainbow that lit up the sky. And we hoped that was a positive sign that dad would come out of this.

While it was not meant to be, I can never see a rainbow in the sky without thinking about my dad.

Just as sunsets and clouds make me think of my mom. 

One of the things I noticed once Alzheimer’s had a firm grip on my mother was her fascination with all manner of meteorological happenings.  She constantly commented on the color of the sky, particularly on those days when the sky was a vivid cerulean blue.  

And she obsessed about the shape and type of clouds, which had me scrambling through my memory banks of sixth grade science class trying to remember the difference between nimbus and cirrus clouds.  (When we couldn’t differentiate between them, I was able to consult Google. Gotta love the Google.)

Anyway, I suspect that by this point, Mom had lost her grasp on current events and recent memories, so she was able to contribute to the conversation by talking about the clouds.

There were moments I was sad listening to her talk about the sky – mostly because my mother had been an incredibly intelligent woman and she was never without an opinion on pretty much any topic.  But she could no longer track a conversation and didn’t really participate in our back and forth banter.

So now, whenever I do take a moment and look up at the sky, I think about my mom and her ruminations about the sky and the clouds.  

And I think to myself that maybe it’s not such a bad thing – to stop what we’re doing and look up at the sky and reflect on how beautiful and amazing our world is.

Guess mom can still teach me a thing or two, can’t she?

So…thanks, mom.  I miss seeing you due to this coronavirus thing. I hope we get to be with you soon.

And I miss you, too, dad. So much.