Saturday dawned with perfect springtime weather. Chad woke up with an itch to get in the yard, so he got a load of mulch and we hit the front flower beds. The kids joined us as we scooped and spread, making the winter-worn bed look fresh and alive. I looked up and saw a threatening dark cloud heading our way and we hurried along to beat the storm. But, as luck would have it, we felt only a few drops. As we worked through what we thought might turn ugly, it quickly passed and the day warmed up, even more glorious than before.
That cloud, though, took my mind back to a trip several years ago to Sand Dunes National Park in southern Colorado. After camping overnight, we loaded up the truck with all the stuff we thought we'd need for a day at the dunes: sand toys, jackets, extra clothes, blankets, a cooler, folding chairs, snacks, hats, sunscreen. After parking in the visitors lot, hauled our gear to the river to play. In the Spring, the run off from the mountains creates the most amazing river through the dunes, churning and changing the sandy landscape continuously. It's an amazing playground. Like watching erosion in fast motion. It was probably about a mile trek from the car down and across the river, to the spot Chad deemed "perfect" to set up our home base. The kids started wading in the water and digging in the sand. I sunscreened up the baby. We laid out our blanket and set up the chairs and seemed like we just got settled, when those typical Colorado dark clouds started to roll in. I watched as the storm approached, and hoped it wouldn't be much. But, when it suddenly blew overhead, it brought with it lots of wind and rain and hail. We tried to quickly batten down the blankets and toys on the sand, grabbed the cooler and the kids, and ran as quickly as we could back to the car. When we arrived, there were tears and cold fingers and sad faces. We got situated in the truck and had lunch while the storm passed, and under blue skies we headed back to the river. This time, we didn't bring everything. We simplified what we needed, and left the rest in the car.
Back at the river we re-situated ourselves in a different spot, on the parking-lot side of the river this time. The kids played. Smiles returned. And, in the distance, another storm cloud was headed our way. As it crept closer I said to Chad, "Should we head back to the car again?"
"No, we can wait this one out. You'll see."
As the cloud got closer and the wind started to pick up, all the people around us quickly gathered up their things and started running back to the parking lot. We, instead, gathered our children and sat down on our blanket with our backs toward the storm. We held the blanket up over our family, Chad on one side and me on the other. With our little brood between us in our makeshift tent, we waited as the wind got stronger and the rain started to come. We sang songs and played the alphabet game and laughed at Davis' antics. It started to hail, but the kids couldn't feel it inside our blanket fort. The river started to widen and crept closer to us, almost to our blanket shelter, but then just as suddenly as it had come, the storm passed over us. The sun came out. The river retreated. We threw off the blanket to discover that we had the whole place to ourselves. And the day was more glorious than it had even been before.
As we've been hunkered down at home, riding out the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic, I feel a little like we did at the sand dunes in our makeshift blanket tent. Chad and I are, in many ways, holding up the shelter as best we can under the circumstances of lost income and homeschooling and a simplified schedule. But, we've got our family together. We can laugh and sing and play together. Sometimes it has seemed like the hail is getting stronger at our back and the river is creeping ever closer, but as we've held on tight to the things that matter the most, we have been weathering the storm. I have faith that as we watch the clouds pass, just like that day on the dunes and on Saturday in the garden, the sun will come out and our lives will be even more glorious than they were before. Just like our first dash from the storm at the dunes taught us a few things, this experience has taught us much about how we want our life when we get back to "normal." It looks simpler and more family focused, less hectic and more joyful. I have found great comfort in counting my blessings and watching for miracles and I'm certain that when we come out on the other side, I will have become more than I was.
