I left our delightful, two-story house in the country at the typical time—a half hour before school—on a chilly, gray, weekday morning typical of early April in Ohio. It wasn’t dark, but the sun wasn’t shining, either. Rain showers, typical of spring, had been forecasted for the afternoon.
But today wasn’t quite so typical.
I backed out of the garage and turned down the driveway, noticing the faintest specks of water, pinpoint-tiny droplets on my windshield, but only three or four. Not even enough to turn on the wipers. Not even enough to say it was raining. And certainly not enough to deflate the giddiness of my about-to-burst, happy heart.
Jackson wanted to marry me!
I reached the end of the drive, where I always waited to pull out. The slight hills hiding the oncoming traffic of the busy state route presented quite a challenge. In fact, if you were going to go, you had to commit.
Ah, the irony. Was I ready to commit myself to someone again? And did I believe in marriage enough to try?
I checked my hair in the rearview mirror then glanced across the road to the field straight ahead of me, an open area before a tree line. I could not believe my eyes.
A single vertical rainbow stood straight up and down all by itself in that field.
I looked quickly to my left and right again to see if there were other witnesses, but no one else was around—no cars drove by, no neighbors stood in their yards, no joggers passed on their morning run. A rainbow for my eyes only.
A sign from the Universe I couldn’t deny. Approval. A blessing. A symbol of hope and a promise of the future.
On a morning with little rain and hardly any sunshine, the two ingredients normally needed to create such a phenomenon of light.
Very strange, this out-of-nowhere rainbow.
But not a coincidence. I understood this. I felt it in my heart and body and soul—all that had once been broken.
Its message was shining through.
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Aimee Ross 