Storms and Signals

Margaret stood by the window watching the rain dance against the glass, just as it had danced against her parents' farmhouse window sixty years ago. The water flowing down the pane reminded her of tears shed and blessings received, the dual currents that carry us through life.

The distant flash of lightning illuminated the yard—old oak trees that had stood watch over three generations of her family. She smiled remembering how her grandmother had called summer storms "the heavens' fireworks," a child's explanation that made the terrifying beautiful.

Her iPhone buzzed in her cardigan pocket. At seventy-eight, Margaret still marveled at this slice of magic her granddaughter had insisted she needed. Sarah had shown her how to use it with the patience Margaret once used teaching Sarah to tie shoes. The circle of learning, unbroken.

"Grandma? Are you watching the storm?" Sarah's face appeared on the screen, glowing against the darkened kitchen.

"I am, sweetheart. Just like we did when you were little, remember? You'd hide under the quilt until the thunder passed."

Sarah laughed. "I still want to sometimes. Now I have my daughter asking why the sky is angry."

The screen showed Margaret's great-granddaughter, six-year-old Lily, clutching a stuffed rabbit. The sight filled Margaret's chest with warmth. "Tell her the sky isn't angry, my love. Tell her it's just making room for the rainbow."

Another lightning flash, closer now. Margaret remembered the summer of 1972, when storms had battered the farmhouse for weeks. Her father had stood on the porch saying, "The water always finds its way, Peggy. Just like love always finds its way."

He'd been right. Through divorces and deployments, through babies born and parents buried, love had found its way—sometimes quietly as rain, sometimes dramatically as lightning, but always it had flowed.

"Grandma, Lily wants to know if you're safe."

"Safe as houses, my darling. The Good Lord's been watching over me through seventy-eight years of storms. He's not taking a break now."

The phone showed both Sarah and Lily waving. Margaret pressed her palm against the screen, a benediction across time and space.

"I love you both more than all the water in all the oceans."

"We love you too, Grandma."

As the call ended, Margaret watched the rain wash over her garden—roses she'd planted the year her husband passed, now blooming wild and free. The water nourished. The lightning illuminated. And this little window of glass and light kept her tethered to the future even as her roots went deeper into the past.

Somehow, it was all connected. The storms, the love, the years flowing like water toward the sea. All of it carrying them home.