You know when you get sick and everything is horrible? Your back hurts, your eyes hurt, your head hurts, you say to yourself "If I have to get up today I'm going to literally fall over dead!"? Those days when you can't even do what you like to do, or eat and drink what you like to eat and drink? Where you all you can do is watch stupid show reruns that you've already seen a million times. Those days where you even wish you could be out of the four walls that surround you and go to your job or to school? What about those moments when you realize you'll never see that person that you loved. Or those moments when something so terrible happens that you start to question all humanity. Those dark times where there is no light and the darkness is so impenetrable that you almost suffocate in it? But then, after the sickness, after the darkness, after all that sorrow.....There's a little ray of sunshine; a little glimmer of color. Those are the moments everyone always wait for. The moments when, after being sick, you can actually appreciate how beautiful you really are. The moments that some random person does this amazing act of kindness, or someone new is born into the family and you can tell that that baby will be someone amazing someday. Those moments you realize that the person you lost was suffering and, wherever you believe they go after they pass, they are in a better place. The moments where you just feel amazing, like nothing can hurt you; nothing can stand in your way. Those moments are the reasons people don't give in to the sadness, into the sickness or sorrow, during those moments of darkness. The good after the bad. The light after the darkness. Life always has its ups and downs but nobody tells you how much you need both the good AND the bad. Nobody tells you that if you didn't have the good there's no way you could survive the pain. Nobody tells you that, without the bad, you wouldn't be able to really appreciate the good things in life. Without the bad you would never be able to sit and watch a sunset, or look at a rainbow and see the colors. People, like me and like you, are always waiting for that little rainbow after the storm.
-Danielle Standiford
