Signs from Above

Saturday was spent finishing a photo shoot by lunchtime, and then running around in the heat and humidity planting plants, weeding flower beds, trimming spent roses and just getting caught up on everything that falls by the wayside during the week.

So as sunset approached, and it was just Mr. Tide and me at home, I got out of my work clothes and put on my PJs to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening before heading to bed to start life all over again today.

I stuck my head out of the front door to catch Mr. Tide doing the last of the watering when he said, "You might want to get your camera ready babe, I think it's going to be a pretty sunset."  We had two big thunderstorms pass just north and south of us and he predicted that a colorful sunset would result from our lack of much needed rain.

When I looked out across the field the picture above is what I saw...pretty, but certainly nothing spectacular.  We really get our most beautiful sunsets in the winter when the sun slowly goes down over the river and not over the treeline across the field from us.  But I know Mr. Tide is rarely wrong, so PJs and all, I set up the tripod and the camera in our driveway!  Thank goodness for hardly any neighbors!

Patience is not my strong suit, but as I waited barefooted and hoping no one would drive down the road, the sky began to slowly change.  It wasn't your typical sunset, where the color primarily emanates around the sun itself and then oozes out to the surrounding clouds.

With this sunset, it was if the whole sky was changing all at once, being illuminated in a way I've not seen for a very long time.  With each passing moment, the colors grew more and more intense until nearly everything in view was awash in beautiful shades of pink, blue, lavender and white!  

And it was a far cry from what the sky had looked like just a half an hour earlier when we were under a severe thunderstorm warning and the sky was ominous and dark!

I just stood there snapping away, completely in awe of how the sky looked and then a thought came to me that was almost overwhelming.  I looked up towards my right, and see that almost fuzzy glow there in the upper right hand corner of the photo above? 

I sometimes get feelings about things, and at that moment I realized that tonight was Relay For Life at one of our local high schools.  Our son was actually there working the event as a member of our local rescue squad, but in years past he had been there as part of a team, supporting a boy he had gone through school with.

A boy named Jordan, whose life was cut inexplicably short by that horrible disease we call Cancer.  And I realized that although the area right around the sun itself, (which you can see in the picture above), was dramatic and beautiful...

But it was to my right, away from the sun, that was the most spectacular.  And it is that part of the sky that sits directly above the high school far off in the distance, where Relay For Life was taking place!  Where Jordan's friends and family would be gathered wearing their Team JP shirts.  And I think, no I know, that Jordan was saying to all of them, thank you everyone, I'm here and I'm fine...life is good and keep going for it!  

And then, just as quickly as it came, (and after snapping nearly 100 pictures), the sunset gave way to nightfall, but the message it conveyed still hung in the air.  Signs are all around us, we just need to stop, look, and listen!