It was December 13, 2015, and I was spending my afternoon in Riverview like most I had spent for the last five months. Two weeks prior, I had spent Thanksgiving alone. Now Christmas was less than two weeks away, and I would spend the holiday alone.
Later in the afternoon, I sat on my patio listening to music, watching the sandhill cranes graze in the yard and cardinals enjoying black sunflower seed in the bird feeders. I was enjoying a bottle of wine when the thunderstorm rolled in. I love thunderstorms, and the rain is always so cleansing to experience.
I don’t remember how long the thunderstorm lasted, but as the storm clouds rolled away, the sun began to shine again. It was still raining lightly, and I just knew there would be a rainbow in the sky. I walked to the patio door and looked towards the north, and what I saw took my breath away. Not only was there a rainbow, but a double rainbow – something I had seen in pictures but never witnessed myself.
Riverview, FL
I ran back to the table and grabbed my cell phone and took several photos. I captured both rainbows in full color with blue sky and white puffy clouds under the primary rainbow. And if you look closely at the top rainbow, you can see a heart shape within the wispy clouds. It was the highlight of my afternoon and would take another seven months to understand how significant the double rainbow sighting truly was.
Leesburg, FL
On December 13, 2015, he was spending his afternoon in Leesburg like most he had spent for months. He, too, had spent Thanksgiving alone and would be spending Christmas alone. He sat in his man-cave, “The Shed”, listening to music. It was mid-afternoon, and he was enjoying the beer when the thunderstorm rolled in.
As the storm subsided, he looked to the south. To his wonder, he saw a double rainbow. He grabbed his phone and took a photo capturing two brilliant rainbows shining against a gray sky. And if you look closely, there is a wispy cloud in the primary rainbow on the left-side as if it was hugging the rainbow. Just like me, it would be seven months before the true meaning presented itself.
A double rainbow occurs about 1 in 10 times a normal rainbow is seen. In Asian culture, red is symbolic of the feet and violet is the head. So in the primary rainbow, the human is reaching upward while the secondary rainbow is reaching downward. The double rainbow is a symbol of transformation. It has also been said that if you witness a double rainbow, blessings will fall into your lap . . . one good thing will lead to another.
It’s been seven months since December 13, 2015. Last weekend, we shared our love of rainbows and our photos. We looked at each other in awe and amazement when we discovered our cell phone pictures of a double rainbow were taken within an hour of each other – from the same storm, destiny smiled upon us in the form of a double rainbow.
When I look at the photos now, I see that the heart-shape hole in the cloud in Riverview is him reaching out from Leesburg with his heart. From Leesburg, he sees me reaching out with open arms via a wispy cloud in the primary rainbow. What are the chances that two people who have never met photograph the same double rainbow 100+ miles apart from each other and on the same day, just an hour apart? We know it’s probably 1 in a million . . . but it happened to us.
beapositive 