Raining

Mommy!  Moooooommmmmmmmyyyyy!!!

I look up from cooking, alarmed.  It is never a good thing when your children come running in from outside screeching like that.  I go over to the mud room and notice that it has just let loose, pouring down rain.  Relief enters my heart.  THAT is why they are screaming for me.  I open the door and Charlie and Alexis come in, laughing and shaking off the rain.  Charlie looks up at me, grinning.

"Mama, I was running in from the rain, did you see me Mom?  It was TOTALLY AWESOME!!!"

I couldn't help but think about how had that been me caught in the rain, the ensuing rage would have been of apocalyptic proportions.  I would have been pissed about getting wet, about the sensation of having damp clothes against my body, wet hair, and cold feet.  I would not have laughed at having to run in from playing.  I would not have had a first thought of it being totally awesome.

When was the last time that I danced in the rain?  The answer to that is probably never, though I do have a memory of playing in the puddles in the streets after heavy rains and playing in the one spot in the driveway that held water after my father washed the car.  The idea there is the same though...taking an awful situation and making the best of it.

This brings to mind the fundraiser I am running for JJ.  The number of people who are being so exceedingly generous simply astounds me.  It is amazing and I cannot think about it without getting choked up.  People who do not even know JJ are donating.  Something good out of something awful.

My challenge, then, is this.  What can you do to take a bad situation and make it better?  Not good, mind you.  Nothing good comes out of getting caught in the rain, or from having cancer, or any of the other myriad things that are awful in the world.  What can you do to make it better?  Dance in the rain.  Give to a stranger.  Pay it forward somehow.

The little things add up.  Change starts with the individual and vibrates outward.  Make some noise and stop going with the flow.  If everyone thought about someone else for just a little bit, what a difference that would make.  Will it eliminate all of the crap, the diseases, the storms?  No.  This is the world we live in and that we have been given.  All that comes with the territory.  We can only change what we do.

Dance in the rain.