A Moment’s Glory

This was one of those moments, I had never seen a rainbow from an airplane before.  Heck, I couldn’t even remember the last time that I had seen a rainbow from the ground.  But the story surrounding this image is what inspired this blog’s namesake. 

August 3, 2013… coincidently was both the day that I took off for my trip to the Pacific Northwest and the day that would have marked my 11 year wedding anniversary.  Instead it marked the third year without Dale and this was a journey that I was making alone.

The whole story surrounding this photo was two years in the making, but the immediate story began just a short time before boarding the plane during my layover in Chicago.  I was actually in the bathroom, probably the only place in the airport where I could actually hear the background music and when I did, there was no hesitation in recognizing the song that I heard.  It was the wedding song that was ours exactly 11 years prior. It’s a weird day, an anniversary day, just like a birthday or father’s day.  It is nothing like the day, the day it happened, nothing compares to that day.  But the other days, they have gotten easier as time passed.  However, this particular anniversary found me more emotional because I was making an emotional journey.  It was 9 months after Dale’s death that I found my love for photography, landscape in particular.  It was 13 months after when I actually bought a $4000 piece of work by William Carr, “Brilliant.”  Crazy, I know, but I had found such solace in these photographs, that one in particular, that I just wanted to fill the emptiness that my home now felt. To make a long story short, it arrived damaged and I ended up getting refunded.  I decided instead of owning this piece of photography that I wanted to experience it for myself.  So I took this journey alone to see the tree that was made “Brilliant.”

Back to the song, “Runaway” by The Coors, it’s not a song that is played very often and it took me off guard the moment I heard it.  I couldn’t help but to instantly tear up.  Shortly thereafter, I boarded the plane with a lump in my throat.

I love window seats.  I have to have them.  I am not a fan of flying and somehow being able to see outside helps.  I remember seeing this huge cloud.  It was shaped very bizarrely and I couldn’t help but to be completely captivated by it.  The image above did not capture this, but on the left hand side you can get a glimpse of how it curved in and because of the state of mind I was in at that time, I couldn’t help but to ask myself, “Heaven?”  It looked like an opening to a kingdom.  By the time I “woke up” from my gaze and realized I should get my camera ASAP I had missed that moment.  I missed my chance to capture what I had seen.  I did not even see the rainbow at this point.  I only did after we had already passed what I had wanted to capture and was looking back on that monstrous cloud.   And there it was, the rainbow.   I had never seen it linear before, and from the sky it looked like a waterfall. It was stunning.  Fortunately I still had my camera in my hands, otherwise I never would have caught it.  By the time I took a picture and nudged my neighbor to take a look, it was gone.

I had stolen that moment in all of it’s glory.  And under the circumstances of that day and of that trip, it was one of those experiences, both visually and emotionally that I will never forget.

A Moment’s Glory… Life is but a series of moments. When we are lucky enough to encounter an extraordinary one, a moment in all of its glory, it needs to be captured and treasured. That’s what makes life special and memorable. That’s what keeps happiness and hope alive within all of us.