Rainbows drip endless tears

photo:  nxe.weebly.com

The day is close.  Heavy air too damp and hot for this early in summer, and I think inside myself that it is a curious note.  Springtime in East Tennessee this year was glorious, a true spring such as we haven't experienced in many years.  It took me back to childhood memories where everything was an explosion of color, flowers, peaceful wooded hills and ready hugs from every adult around me.

Yet here we are, on the heels of that glorious spring, experiencing a brutal beginning to summer.  The brutality is mirrored in horrific moments in my country.  A beautiful, talented young woman was murdered in the state of Florida, in a senseless act as she pursued her musical dreams. 

A day later, in the same state of Florida, a nightmare attack took the lives of 49 people who were enjoying an evening in a nightclub. 49 deaths are reported, and I fear the number will increase in coming days. 

The thoughts that run through my mind in the wake of these violent actions are tangible, etching the moist air around me with ragged edges.  They hang there, aloft, sad and forlorn, as I picture the people who await news of their loved ones....praying, I am certain, to hear that loved one's voice, alive and vital.

Yet we already know the ones slain are still there in that nightclub, quiet and still, surrounded by crime scene tape and endless media trucks.

Moments of beauty are flourishing, small blooms of hope around the world.  There in Florida, a line of over 600 people wait to donate blood and I think that they are the best of my country, rushing to do this one small thing in the face of such devastating carnage. 

The people in that nightclub were slain, to the best of what we know, because they were of the LGBTQ community - different, beautifully so, and proud, choosing to embrace their true selves and come together for an evening of music, dancing and entertainment.  Hateful indications began instantly, words of terrorism, focus on gun control political agendas all ran rampant and continue today, and those focuses will have no further space here. 

Now, as the hours roll forward, on social media there are countless expressions of condolence, sympathy and support for those affected, for those slain, for those mourning, and these expressions are happening around the world.  Rainbow flags are everywhere. 

And here I sit on the steps of my patio with my laptop on my knees, breathing in this heavy, damp day, the heat searing my lungs. 

The thoughts crash from my fingertips, yet make no sound on the page. I feel the need to hurl them outward, allowing them to fly high in the sky and fracture, so that they might rain back down in bright, beautiful colors of each of the souls taken from us so unfairly.  

Rainbow colors, they would be.  Of course they would. 

Perhaps in another reality, one we can't see with our human eyes, they are hale and whole, watching us as we scramble to understand, to absorb and accept.  I believe this to be true, and I am confident and sure that the overwhelming amount of prayer and love being focused for all of them has taken them through their unexpected transition swiftly and smoothly, lifting them quickly to that next destination.

My own recent struggles pale in comparison to what has happened in Florida.  I feel a sense of drift and inadequacy, because those issues exist and are quite valid in my heart, but I haven't lost a loved one to wrenching, cold, cruel murder.  All I am able to do is sit here in the waning summer fire of a June Sunday, smelling the green of freshly cut grass, hearing the droning of fat honeybees drunk on nectar from nearby flowers.  I am here, writing and pausing, sheltering my eyes from the sinking sun, tapping out words on a screen that cannot reflect the enormity of what this weekend has wrought.

Rainbows.  Normally, a rainbow comes after a storm, bringing smiles and delight.

  Today, rainbows drip endless tears. 

And the world mourns. 

Quiet Tribute

*I wrote this article in 2012, and feel that it still speaks my heart and my perspective on the day this tragedy struck my country.  It is my way of paying tribute and remembering those who fell that day.  - S. Dawn Sievers*

I was taking a shower that morning, and heard the phone ringing.  I didn't think much of it, as I had plans to meet a girlfriend for lunch later that day.  I finished showering, decided to dry my hair before listening to the answering machine message.  But the phone rang again, and yet again, encouraging me to stop everything and answer the call. It was my girlfriend telling me the USA had been attacked, that a plane had hit one of the Towers of the World Trade Center and another one had gone down in a field somewhere in Pennsylvania, and equally nightmarish - a living nightmare - was the news that our Pentagon had also suffered an attack....all of this happening within a very short span of time on the clock of that September morning.

This was difficult to even picture or fathom, because this type of thing just doesn't happen to America.  Or, it didn't.  Up until that day, our country had lived in a unique bubble, safe and never assailed by outside forces in this modern age.  The bubble was broken that day.

I turned the TV on and watched, horrified.  The second plane hit the second of the World Trade Center Towers before my eyes and the eyes of the whole world.  Comprehension and terrible understanding sank in.  As I left my house to drive over to my girlfriend's house, I noticed the absolute hush over the day.  Some of this hush was due to all airplanes except for military being grounded, but it was more than that.

There was a hush in nature.  

No birds were singing.  I remember that very clearly, and I stood outside listening for a good 15 minutes, looking around me, but the sounds of nature were silent.  My home at the time was surrounded by heavy tracts of woods, so there were always the sounds of birds chirping.  But not that day.  It was silent outside.  There was no breeze.  Just a still hush over the world that was palpable.  I will never forget how it felt, as though the world was holding its breath for the people who perished that day.

I spent the day getting in touch with everyone I love the most, making sure they were safe.  There was an intrinsic need to connect with them, and I learned I was not alone in that need.  Phone lines and computer servers were overloaded with extremely high levels of activity that day.  I grieved at what a great loss we had incurred and struggled to make sense of it.  There is no sense to be garnered, obviously.  The only positive thing I can take from it is that we survived it.  Our country survived, but thousands of innocent people died.  This many years later, the memories are still vivid and fresh, and for many....still raw.

I've read other people's thoughts of where they were that day. I was in Knoxville, Tennessee, living my very ordinary life, safe and far from harm's way.  That prompted me to share my memories and what still stands out so strongly in my memory was how quiet the day became.  For those who believe this planet is inanimate, without reaction to tragic events, I would hold that memory out as an example of the exact opposite.

I felt the earth react and give quiet tribute to the ones who left us.