Waiting for the Rain

I sat on my back deck that afternoon, watching the fiery sunset. Incredible shades of crimson and orange, pink and deep amethyst, were painting the most beautiful masterpiece across the western sky with its backdrop of the distant Sangre de Cristo mountains.

The problem? It was only 4:30 p.m. The sun doesn’t go down around here until about 8 p.m. in the early summer.

It was smoke, of course. Smoke from the fires burning in southwestern Colorado, from the massive Black Forest fire north of Colorado Springs, and from another fire burning at Royal Gorge in Cañon City south of here. We had grass fires up here, too—every day my cell phone was ping, ping, pinging with the messages sent from the sheriff’s office. To be honest, it was exhausting. I had a bag ready, the dog supplies sitting just inside the front door, and all of my need-to-go items in the Jeep about 30 minutes after I received my first pre-evacuation order. And then I—like thousands of other Coloradans—settled in to wait for the rain.

You see, even with the record heat, wind, and lack of humidity (which most of those days was around 3%), we knew one simple thing: the rain would come.

It always comes, eventually.

The thing is… I was actively waiting. I waited and hoped (or prayed or wished) for the rain. I practiced some wildfire mitigation actions around the house. I kept the Jeep loaded and ready to go. I even wrote my contact information with Sharpie on the bathroom mirror, so that if there was a real evacuation, the police and firefighters would know (A.) that we got out okay, and (B.) how to reach us.

But mostly, I waited for the rain with the sure knowledge that it would come.

There are so many situations in our lives in which we’re waiting for the rain. My best friend, my battle buddy, the one with whom I share a brain, got sick last year. Really, really sick. And you know what? That was our fire, our drought, our wind-driven rampage through her life.

And we actively waited together.

With the sure knowledge and faith that the rain would come, I waited with her. Through surgeries, transfusions, chemotherapy. There were Facebook chats, and goofy jokes, and long-running ridiculous conversations. We even watched a season of Downton Abbey together (virtually), waiting for the rain which is falling joyously down on the fire of that cancer right now.

I have another much beloved friend whose husband died by suicide a few years ago. The fires are sporadic. Like brushfires that never go completely out, there are flares. I wait with her. I will always wait with her for as long as she needs it. When the fires flare, we talk, we chat, we tell stupid jokes and heart-rending stories. And we wait for the rain, which we know is coming (and when she forgets sometimes, I remind her).

I’m not going anywhere, and the rain will always come again.

We’ll have to live through hard times…it’s a fact of life. There will be deployments and scary missions, duty stations that we don’t like and people who are hard to deal with. There may be illness, and there may be family emergencies that are hard to get back for.

Just remember, when the fires are raging, that you are prepared and ready and have people who are there to support you.

Remember, when you’re waiting for the rain, to have faith and be secure in the knowledge that it will come.

It always does.