Sometimes in life those valuable “oh yeah, this is good” type of lessons show up in the strangest of ways. I’m sure most of us are familiar with the famous quote of “life isn’t waiting for the storm to pass..it’s about learning to dance in the rain”, however most of us run for cover the second a drop hits our precious little heads because hello, it look a long time to get that hair lookin’ good. I get it, I totally do. However, it was a few weeks ago on a Saturday evening when I was working at our local 4H Fair when the rain rolled in. I was on my way get my beloved mini donuts and everybody started running for cover. I considered doing the same but then I thought about what was waiting for me on the other end [donuts, don’t forget] and I thought “screw it, go get those donuts, get all sorts of wet and soak this moment up girlfriend”. The rain was coming down harder and harder and while I was the only one out walking the fair I remember looking up, holding my hands out to catch the drops, smiling and thinking “this is some good stuff right here. Remember this moment as there is a lot to take from this whole dancing in the rain mantra – life is short, experience it fully”.

Ironically and sadly enough, the very next morning I found out that during these same rain filled hours, a family friend suffered a major brain aneurysm that went on to take her life. It was completely unexpected and left much of our community in shock and hurt as we watched her two children and husband have to say goodbye to their mom and wife way too soon. As I processed what happened I was reminded yet again that our time here is so limited – as silly as it sounds I was so thankful that I had made the decision to embrace the rain the night before and translated that to what that type of “living” looks like in other ways. 

It’s always easy to have this mentality soon after something devastating happens, however holding on to that thirst for life after the days, weeks and months pass is hard. You get busy, you find yourself back in your daily routine, you say yes to things that you should’ve said no to and no to the things that you should have said yes to.  You forget that humans are more important than phones, that doing absolutely nothing is often the best thing and that when another rain shower strikes you should run towards it rather than away. 

Fortunately, mother nature made another rain filled appearance this weekend which allowed for this whole dancing in the rain thing to happen again. We were out on the boat with some friends, waiting for live music to start and the drops started falling down, heavier and heavier. A group vote was taken and fortunately nobody was ready to head back to the house. There we stayed, parked at the sand bar, no live music but a boat full of people who were ready to have fun, no matter the weather. We turned up the jams, filled up our cups and busted out some sweet dance moves. Those couple of hours ended up being some of the most fun hours I’ve had this summer.