rainbows and herons

heron couldn’t sleep last night because she was thinking about rainbows. every time i would go into her room to tell her it was time to sleep (because she was talking or crying) she would ask me, in a puzzled tone, “where’s the rainbow?” we’d seen one in the sky the previous evening, & she hadn’t been able to get it out of her mind. she even woke up yesterday morning with the same concerned question.

“rainbows, like blue herons, are so special that they only show up at really important times” i told her. “it has to be rainy and sunny at the same time to see a rainbow.” i told her that if she fell asleep maybe she would dream about them. maybe she would dream about riding the rainbow like a slide from heaven to earth. “slide down the rainbow...” she said as she shifted sleepily over onto her tummy, closing her eyes.

a rainbow means promise--that everything is going to be okay.

this morning, again, she was obsessed with rainbows, and again wondering where the rainbow we’d seen had gone. i asked her if she’d dreamt of rainbows. “yeah...” she said, still not really understanding what dreaming is. so we made it a rainbow day. we looked at pictures of rainbows all morning long, & i showed her how to draw them. she knows her colors & letters. i showed her all the colors in the rainbow, the order they appear in. i showed her how she could draw a “c” inside another “c”, inside another “c”... then turn her paper on its side. a rainbow is a colorful, sideways “c”. see?

& i remembered, as i was teaching her about rainbows, that i was enamored with them as a young girl, too. i would fill up an entire page with rainbows, hundreds of them, built on top of each other. a giant rainbow city. a big one at the bottom of the page, to begin with. then one off to each side, then another one connecting those two, and so on. i would draw this for you now, but it would take me hours. and somehow i haven’t got hours anymore. because i am teaching my daughter about rainbows.

when josh & i were declaring our love to one another on a mototaxi in the jungle, on our way to the shantytown where i worked, dreaming of the children we would have (even though i believed it wouldn't be possible for me to bear children), a rainbow showed up out of nowhere. it was a perfectly sunny day, & at the moment we spoke of spending our lives together a sunshower + rainbow appeared. but things later fell apart; for years they fell apart. later i even got engaged to someone else. but called off the wedding. thank God, we called off the wedding. afterwards, so confused, but i started seeing rainbows. every single day, for forty days. the light through a prism, the screenprint on somebody’s shirt, a sticker on a car. somewhere God would show me a rainbow every single day. & i knew it meant something. & then i got this letter in the mail from josh, & then we were together again, forever.

a rainbow means promise--that everything is going to be okay.

now we have a little girl, and her name is heron, named after the great blue heron that shows up at really important times. she was promised to us. she's a walking rainbow (in so many ways), and she's turning two tomorrow. happy birthday, little blue!