A Quick Tale

The thunder clouds loomed large, before I took Ian to his school dance last night on my way to the grocery store.

But still we walked.

And tired of its threats being ignored, just after my first stop was completed, the sky opened in a phenomenal rage; gusting me with wind and bulleting me with drops small and stingy.

My umbrella was no match for the sheer volume of water and the bullying weight of the wind, and I found myself almost afloat as I dance-sailed to the store.

Throughout it all, I felt happy, alive, in love with love. It seemed that the harder the storm pushed, the more enamored I became. And then something odd happened. Something strange and disconcerting. I’ll try to explain.

At one point, while I dueled the wind pointlessly with my Mary Poppinish saber, my face cracked itself into an expression I felt very much that my father would have made, had he been there and still able to crack expressions. And for a brief second – just a heartbeat – I became him. I became him, and I felt a shudder of disgust. Not at the man who he was, but at the man that I could become, if I’m not careful.

It hit hard, and I found myself saying to him, yelling above the storm, “I love you dad, but I am not you. I can not be you. I refuse to hate the storm that blows me. I refuse to box myself into a world of only my understanding. I refuse to look at a gift from God – regardless of how seemingly crazy it might be on the surface – and simply deny it as a result of my ignorance and fear. I don’t know what I don’t know dad, but I refuse to allow that to stop me from learning. The cliff scares me dad, but instead of turning away, or living the rest of my life peering over it, wondering ‘what if,’ I will leap dad. I will leap, and I will fly.”

This is Love. This is why so many die without Love. Love is gentle, kind and patient. But Love also asks that we trust it wholly. Especially in those times when we would feel most comfortable in not doing so. On the surface it may appear slightly different to us, when it comes in the form of a pet, a child, a friend, or a lover. But with all of its faces, and no matter where it invades our life from, Love asks that we trust it, even when the storm brews.

Especially when the storm brews.

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