El Dorado National Forest, California, contributed by Andrew Chu (2025)
My father passed away from cancer in February 2013, when I was 9 years old. When he passed at the hospital, the doctor, in an effort to comfort my grieving mother, told her that the deceased never truly leave us. They are always around us, we just have to look. He gave an example: perhaps that fruit fly on the wall could be him, buzzing around the room and inconspicuously looking out for you from the afterlife.
In April 2013, my mother, younger brother, younger sister and I were on a road trip through a pocket of the Sierra Nevada. We had been wandering around a redwood forest when my mom suddenly pointed to the sky. “Look! He’s smiling down at us.”
I had never seen a rainbow so perfectly placed in the center of the sky, extending just long enough to reveal a faint grin. I never did see another rainbow like that again.
You can take the doctor’s wisdom literally or metaphorically. Either way, when one is facing loss, I think it is sage advice to try to stay attuned to the fruit flies and the rainbows - the small things in life. To stay grounded in reality, to try to appreciate the little joys that we encounter every day, and to lean on those that we are lucky enough to still have with us.
