Did You Drop Everything Just To See It?

After dinner, I stood at my kitchen sink, looked west to the backyard to see the sun shinning and the rain pouring down.  Water was streaming down in straight sheets, dancing in the glittering sunlight. Next, I turned my head to look to the front of the house, the spot where I’ve seen rainbows before, and saw a clear blue sky and no rain.  I sent the boys outside to find the exact spot where the rain stopped and started. No clear confirmation.

My Mom always told me that rainbows couldn’t appear in photographs. This gave rainbows a mystique I could never understand.  “Why, if rainbows were God’s promise, did he tease us by not making them available in print?”  More importantly, “why did God change his mind about the whole flood thing?”

For years, I never bothered to take a picture of a rainbow.

I didn’t feel like pondering those bigger questions; I just went ahead and shot a picture anyway; because digital today makes it possible to do things like that without wasting film or even a dime. There was not one, but two rainbows.

Either I have a really great camera, or Mom was just wrong. Still, because of what my Mom taught me about rainbows, whether true or not, I always stop whatever I’m doing to appreciate their beauty.  Because, you never know if this just might be the last rainbow you’ll see in a long while.