Rain and Bows

Mikayla is still having quite a bit of storm anxiety.  She is especially worried if it gets really windy or rains.  However, I think we've hit a turning point.  All summer since the accident, she's been terrified of storms.  She cries, shakes, goes pale, almost hyper ventilates...it's extremely heart breaking as her parents, for us to not be able to help her and have to see her like that.  We have been teaching her to take deep breaths, snuggle a special blanket or toy (or person), say a prayer asking for help to get through the storm.  It seems to work sometimes, not so much other times.

While camping Labor Day weekend, a quick "storm" blew up on Sunday afternoon.  We were outside and could see the entire cloud, surrounded by sunlight.  It would be here and gone within 10 minutes.  As adults, we knew that.  But we couldn't explain that to Mikayla.  As the first raindrops started to fall, she started crying and ran to the camper.  I was just coming out after preparing dinner and I talked her into sitting under the canopy with everyone else.  She was scared, but she agreed.  We sat there while it rained for about 10 minutes--no wind, no thunder, no lightning.  The whole time, we made a big deal out of how brave she was being and how it was almost over.  Then, the rain stopped and this showed up:

It was perfect!  We could see the entire rainbow, plus the majority of a lighter, double rainbow above it.  Most of us had never seen such a bright rainbow, with colors so vivid we could even make out the purple!  Mikayla was convinced the rainbow was just for her, for being so brave.  We told her that rainbows only come out after the rain, and that there was no other way they could be in the sky.  Only after rain can they shine like that.  It was just what she needed!  Now we hope that the memory remains for the next storm--we haven't had rain in over a week, which for this summer is just a crazy long amount of time.