Big Picture

The two-day drive from Texas to northern Indiana gives me lots of time to think. I'm not really a fan of driving, but I like the enforced solitude and the feeling of being untethered.

This time, I'm making the drive to help my parents for a few weeks. Dad is dealing with a serious health issue; Mom is frail; and my brother and his wife are juggling as much as they can.

Clearly, another pair of hands is in order.

Speeding along I-55 north, I go over Mom and Dad's health issues in my head, trying to see things from all angles. It's what I do, instead of worry.

When I was a kid, I worried about Dad because he traveled a lot. One day, in an attempt to ease my fears, he told me that the reason we worry is that we can't see the Big Picture. (In my mind, it is always capitalized.) He said that faith was about knowing the Big Picture was there, even if we didn't see it until we were further down the road.

At the time, I was young enough to think that I already saw all the picture there was to see, but his words sunk in anyway. It has become almost a mantra: I don't yet have the full perspective. I can't yet see the Big Picture but it's there, somewhere down the road. 

It starts to rain and I flip on the windshield wipers. The rain lets up almost instantly; off they go. I think about my parents and the long journey of their lives and wish we had a better picture-- 

Ahead of me, I see a flash of brilliant color. A piece of rainbow, just the bottom tip, bathes a stand of trees in shimmering light. 

The colors are intense. I slow down involuntarily (thankful for an empty freeway around me.)  As I drive forward, the rainbow grows. It stretches up, over the copse of trees - and is gone.  The road has turned, and I (again, thankfully), have turned with it and the amazing rainbow is gone.

For a moment, I feel bereaved. 

I'm tempted to pull off to the shoulder and back up to where I last saw it, but caution and reason win out. I focus instead on navigating the big curve ahead. 

Moments later, I glance to my right. There it is. 180-degrees of clear, uninterrupted, perfect rainbow stretched across the sky.   

It was just waiting for me further down the road.

[Not bad for a picture snapped with one hand, through a dirty, tinted windshield, using my phone...]