When the sky falls down

The wind was whipping off the ocean slapping our faces with cold while Chelsea and I made our way back to the warmth of The Breakfast Club, a block away. The New Year's Day fireworks were painting the sky in brilliant colors but the damned Northeastern wind kept blowing the colors away from the sea where they were supposed to explode in delight to the parking lot of the Strand.

Then pieces of the sky started to fall as the paper balls that hold the explosives were blown backwards. They hit the beach, the parking lot and the water front homes. And one hit my little daughter directly on top of her head. She burst into tears and I grabbed her.

The celebration of one year's death and another's birth would go on without us.

I dreamed about that last night. Something I haven't thought about in years was just as real as when it happened. I could see the smoke cover the bright colors in the sky, hear the sound of the plastic and cardboard hitting the ground, taste my little girl's tears and curse the cold.

Life's like that sometimes.

Brilliant colors explode giving you delight. Love erupts, promises are made, everything fits together nicely and everything feels like a blessing. Prayers of thanksgiving are made followed by pleas that God never changes anything. Life is perfect!

Then it's not.

The sky falls.

Anger flashes. Love is reigned in as though trying to hold sand in your fingers but you don't want to be hurt. Blessings suddenly feel like burdens. Prayers become deals ... "God if you do this for me then I'll do whatever you want." Loneliness drips like cold rain. Nights become long.

We all experience falling skies and damaged lives.

My friend Shirley Sessions takes a very Buddhist approach to such things. She wrote me the other day, "If we don't have sadness in our lives from time to time, we may not appreciate joy when it pops up and fills us with giggles,  laughter and smiles."

Or as the prophet Arlo Guthrie once said, "You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in."

After a long restless night, I woke to a rising sun in clear skies. A little girl was my companion as we made our way to The Breakfast Club. The ocean breeze was light and I whispered prayers of thanksgiving that the darkness was breaking up. Nothing was falling on the ground. There were no tears.

God had wiped it all away.

The blessing is the new day given to us.

It's up to us to whatever we do with it.