Something in the Western Sky

Close your eyes quickly and laugh with the wind.

    On one of the last nights that Michele spent at her Mother’s cabin at Lake Cochrane, there was an incredible sunset filled with unbelievable intensity on the horizon above the waters. The sky was flaunting incredible dark violet clouds while weaving rose threads of contrasting color midst the illuminated orange infused yellow horizon.  Earlier as we had prayed at the church and as we left, a double rainbow stretched across the sky over the Antelope Hills.  Between the rainbow and the sunset, this evening seemed like a sign from the Creator of color and light … that life would go on for the one that we all loved.  On this night … this wife, this daughter, this sister, this mother and this cousin whom we all loved so dearly, again showed us the true meaning of the words: grace, faith and courage. She bravely spoke of days ahead of her … even as quiet tears appeared a time or two, as she held to the assurances of her hope filled faith. A faith so alive with nuances and vibrancy, that it somehow dimmed the vivid colors in the sunset in the Western sky above the lake.  

     I took a picture of that sunset as I came down the stairs to the cabin on the steep bank through the trees. I had the camera in my pocket to show Michele the earlier picture of the rainbow over the church.  Actually it was a double rainbow and when she saw it, she said, “I’ll take it as a sign.” A sign of promise, we all thought, as we silently prayed to our Savior, that things would change in this daunting battle with the word Leukemia that had long since become fight for life itself, to our dear Michele. We spoke of the times ahead … of travel, treatments, tests, blood counts, family, a wedding and many other things. She did not have any great reserves of physical strength at this point and I’m sure the thought of the long journey back to the medical world of trials and medicines must have seemed to her, like a journey to the sun. She was so thankful to be in the house overlooking the lake spending time with her Mother. As she glanced from time to time at the one man she had loved all of her life … her “Donald,” she was expressing hope as much to help him and herself;  as she was about to again put her very life in the hands of her doctors and her Savior.

     Michele always had this uncanny gift of feeling and sensing the needs of others above her own. Her love for her husband, her family and everyone else was so free of the typical human hindrances, that I sometimes feel that it truly came from her God as a special lifelong Spirit generated gift. Her love for fine things and how to value all things might have been part of that same gifting as well. Whether it was relationships, friendships or tangible items like porcelain or art … it was always the same. Michele saw the deeper, the finer, the important and the lasting: as the facets she would value, retain and cherish.

     Of course, we all felt Michele’s life was mostly unfinished in our eyes and this still aches deep in our hearts. Still, there were far more colors of love, faith and courage applied and painted into our lives from her years with us, then can be ever be seen in any sunset. Brilliant memories of actions, thoughts and words will that will ever be part of us and in what we carry away from her life to ours.  Michele expressed to more than one person, “I cannot lose; whether I go to be with Jesus or live to be with the ones I love here.”  We lost her, but she won … something more and above all life, here on earth. 

     It wasn't until I looked at this photograph long after I took it … that I saw the small light filled opening in the glorious sunset painted by the greatest and eternal Creator Artist of all time everlasting. I now realized … we never see completely or really understand what our lives are totally about while we are living in them.  “The Lord wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters. He makes the clouds his chariot and rides on the wings of the wind. He makes winds his messengers, and flames of fire his servants” (Psalm 104:2-4).

    Long ago, Michele wrote the phrase, I used as a beginning heading to this little story.  I thought I knew what it meant then, so I saved it in a book of thoughts.  I know now … there might be a deeper meaning in those simple words as well. There was a great joy in Michele’s heart, as her eyes closed and the wind carried her into the presence of her Lord forever.   srm 2013