With Flying Colors

The letter came via email. “My dad died last year and I don’t really know what to do with myself anymore. My mom is trying to give me space, my friends ask when I’ll be normal again. I turn fifteen tomorrow and my dad is not here to see it.”

I’m the wrong guy to ask about normalcy. I haven’t been normal since third grade when I peed my pants at a school assembly. Even our school nurse remarked, “That child’s not normal.”

No matter. “Normal” is a made-up word. Normal doesn’t exist. Nothing in this world is normal. Not you, not me, or anything in nature.

Years ago, for example, while driving through rural Alabama, I saw something quite abnormal. I’ll never forget it.

It was an overcast day. My wife and I had just left a funeral. There was a lingering sadness over our vehicle. The kind that only the death of a loved one can bring.

We were riding through miles of farmland, grain silos, barns, and cows staring at us as we sped by. That’s when my wife said, “Look!” She was pointing out the window.

I glanced out the window and saw it, too. It was a spectacular rainbow. I pulled into a random cow pasture.

We ran through acres of green grass, alfalfa, and fresh cow pies. And we saw the biggest, best, most vivid rainbow ever.

So help me, the colors were touching the ground. The rainbow’s tail was diving into the dirt like a spotlight.

I’d never seen anything like it. I didn’t know rainbows actually touched the earth. This was highly unusual to me.

The cows watched us with big eyes while we behaved like six-year-olds. My wife ran forward to get a better glimpse. I almost peed my pants again.

But here’s where things get somewhat magical.

Have you ever tried to look at a rainbow up close? You can’t do it. The colors disappear whenever you get too close. Then, the colors will reappear whenever you take several steps back.

It doesn’t mean the rainbow isn’t there. It’s there the whole time, but you can only see it from certain angles.

We hiked back to the truck and I started crying. It wasn’t a sad cry. It was the kind of happy cry you do when a baby is born, or at weddings, or when your team wins the SEC Championship—not that I would know what this is like.

I was crying because I was thinking of my father, and all my late loved ones. I was crying because even though I can’t see them, up close, their colors are still here. In everything I do. In all parts of my life.

Life evaporates. It rises toward heaven at the speed of light. It reaches the top of the world, then disappears, and we’re left with gray clouds. But the colors of someone’s life remain.

Remember their colors, even though you can’t always see their rainbow. Watch for the colors to reappear, because sometimes they frequently show up in the most random places. Even in cow pastures.

Do not forget your father. Talk about him. Tell his stories. Pull over in cattle pastures to chase his memory. Let his memory paint your birthday, and allow yourself to grieve.

And for God’s sake, whatever you do…

Don’t let this world make you normal.