Feeling The Spirit of The Pioneers

It has been a hot, hot afternoon and son was on his end of the house resting and cooling it and I was on mine. We had turned on the swamp cooler to blow out the hot air. Keeps from taxing the AC. And I was laying here in the coolness of my room with my eyes closed resting from the hospital this morning.

Suddenly I got a whiff of something and it made me sit straight up. I sat there just sniffing for a minute and then I got it again. My feet…all four of them..LOL..hit the floor and I was headed towards my bedroom door when I felt myself snatched back onto my hospital bed. I had forgotten to take off the oxygen hose that I use when I am in bed. I snatched it off, grabbed my oxygen backpack from the bed and headed out my door yelling to son to hurry up and come here.

As son came out of his room, I kept saying..do you smell it?? do you smell it?  and he stopped and looked at me and took a deep breath through his nose and grinned and said “RAIN!!!!!!”  and we both turned and excitedly headed to the side door to step outside and see. You would have thought it was Christmas morning.  I could feel the excitement the pioneers must have felt when rain was needed to badly for their crops…for we need it here.  It is hard to imagine getting so excited over the smell of rain in the air but we were.

As we got outside we could hear the thunder and see the clouds so heavy with rain that they were black and lying low in the sky. The wind was blowing hard and the trees were bending over and occasional splats of water would hit my face as I stood looking up into the sky.  The sun sails were flapping in the breeze and the small of rain was everywhere. It was wonderful and fragrant like the smell of roses when your heart is heavy.

Fires are burning in Colorado Springs. The fires seem to be contained just around there but now with rains coming…they fear because of the dry parched ground all over that we will have flash floods. I stood out there thinking about what our pioneers had to endure that we take for granted. The heat..we go inside and turn on AC or swamp coolers, the drought…we water with our hoses, flash flood warnings…we can get in our vehicles and drive to higher ground.

And yet, I felt like the pioneers from long ago were standing outside with me looking at those dark, heavily laden clouds and feeling the splats of rain hit us. Life goes on and generations live on after generations and yet they never truly leave us. I have seen this more out here when I started seeing all the people in the clouds. They are still here…just a breath away. And there are times like today when we will have memories that are theirs like smelling the rain and knowing our crops need it and rushing to go outside and see it. Life is beautiful and to me…life goes on forever..just in different plains.