Dancing in the Rain

See my blog header? The one with the word “FAMILY” superimposed over my family’s faces? Have any of you stopped to read the quote below that? The one that says: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Didja get that? If not, go read it again.

There are storms, people. Big ones. My skies aren’t very dark right now, but I have close friends who have some enormous thunder clouds raining down on them. The ones who have new babies and keep asking, “Why?” The ones who have cancer and also ask, “Why?” The friends who have lost loved ones and feel so alone. Or those friends whose marriages are cold and unraveling.

Sometimes, I don’t know what to say to them. I’ve weathered storms, but my storms left their own special brand of devastation on my life. My friends are going through their own storms, and I don’t have a lot to say to them. But, then again, maybe they don’t want me to say anything to them.

But, oh! I hope they know I’m dancing with them. That they’re not alone. That my heart aches too. I hope that my presence beside them is a dance unto itself, even if the soundtrack is one of silence and anguish. The dancing? It might not be much more than surviving another day. Or holding that baby. Or maybe the dance is simply shedding tears.

There can be beauty in the storm, beauty in the dancing. Let me rephrase that – maybe not a beautiful storm, but beauty in surviving it.