I woke up this morning to very heavy rain. Have you ever caught yourself sitting in your living room or lying on your bed early in the morning and saying, “Alexa, is it raining?”  Have you ever heard Alexa respond, “it’s pouring you dimwit, just look out the window!” Oftentimes, that’s what we do.  We ask Alexa, or Google, questions that we either should know the answer to or could easily find out by, in the case of rain, pulling up the blinds and looking out the window.  Sometimes, you could simply ask whoever is sitting next to you, like your wife. 

Recently my wife told me something that I did not need her to tell me, for me to know.  The details are not important.  What is important is that I should have seen what she was saying even before she said it.  What she said should not have been a revelation.  I should have seen for myself what was happening.  I should have pulled up the blinds!

Now, staying with the rain metaphor, what was happening with my wife was a little rain, at least from my perspective.  But as we have seen so often, especially lately, a little rain can become heavy rain, and heavy rain can lead to flooding, property damage, and even loss of life.  In other words, tragedy, and disaster.  And to think that it all started with just a few drops of rain! 

In my case, I realized that my wife had seen the raindrops and, while they were just raindrops to me, she worried that if I did not do something about it, it soon could be pouring.  Now, I do not need Alexa or Google to tell me what that means.  I know what pouring rain means, but I was refusing to pull up the blinds and see for myself.  I also was not seeing that while it was just a little rain now, well, you get the picture. 

The rest of the story involving my wife?  Crickets…

Once Upon a time, a very long time ago
My dad decided to go on a trip
He promised he'd be back, as soon as he could
He promised to write, he promised to call

But the days came and went, and so did the weeks
The weeks became months and the months turned to years
I never did hear from my father again
I never got a letter or a call from the man

Once, I read a story about a man and a fish
How the fish ate the man, swallowed him whole
I told myself as a child, that my dad was the man
Swallowed whole by the fish, with his promises and all

But unlike the story about the man and the fish
My dad never made it safely to land
He must still be out there, somewhere in the ocean
Perhaps he'll come back, or write me or call

I'm a man now myself, have a family and all
I have beautiful children and a wife I adore
I pray that I never have to take a trip like my dad
I'm afraid of the fish that swallowed him, promises and all