What Makes a Moment Beautiful?

 I so vividly remember standing at the edge of the lake, my mother standing next to me. I looked up to the clouds. While moments ago the water had just been calm, it was now perfectly still. The air was cold, chilling with the same uncertainty I was experiencing at the moment. Merely 20 minutes ago, the sky was clear; the sun had beat down, burning through my skin, reminding me that I had forgotten to apply a layer of sunscreen. Now the sky was blanketed, and the frosty sunlight was covered with a layer of dark and menacing clouds.

Looking over at my mom, I reminisced on all of the times before; the times when she could rarely come down to the beach with us. I could remember each year we came up to rent this cottage, just as she had from the age of seven. Most of the memories I had collected were ones of my mother sitting in the cottage running as many fans as we could possibly sustain. It was hard for her to breathe up at the cottage. Having no air conditioning was something simple for most families; just seen as an annoyance, a minor inconvenience with no tangible weight at all. For us, a small environmental change, something as insignificant as air conditioning, could ultimately result in the difference between life and death. If it were a humid day, and my mother was alone, unable to get help, the humid air could stop her breathing altogether.

I thought of the story she had told me. When she was 19, not much older than I am now, she had a brain hemorrhage and went into a coma. She was very sick. The doctors had told her to say goodbye, that she would never walk or talk again. Even when she had defeated those odds, they told her that she would never be able to have kids, if she would even be lucky to live long enough. This story and these memories were all a constant in my life. Waking up in my room of the tiny, run-down cottage, I could hear my mother gasping for air, my father pounding on her back so she could cough just enough to breathe.

Standing by the lake that day, I looked at my mom in a way I hadn’t before. Just my mom and I were going for a swim in the rain. In hindsight, it was probably the easiest for her to be outside when it was raining. When it rains, the air is crisper, colder, clearer, like the images that sharpen upon wearing a fresh pair of glasses for the first time. I knew it wasn’t easy for her to be outside in the rain, but she did it anyway. I’ll always admire my mom for that. No matter what she goes through, no matter how hard it is for her, she always shows up. She does not let her sickness overtake her identity. Even when it has drained her, even when she could barely breathe, she did everything she could just to be my mom.

The water was cold, and as we waded in together I could feel a shiver emanate through my body. I dunked my head underneath the water. My mother laughed at me. We laughed together. It scared me. Sometimes, if I made her laugh too hard, I would have to run up the stairs to grab an inhaler or some coffee grounds so that she could catch her breath. This time, she was alright. She could breathe. We were swimming. It all felt so alien to me. It wasn’t how worried I was that felt so unusual, rather it was how, at the same time, I understood that everything was going to be alright.

We watched the rain start to pour over the small lake. It started opposite us, and we could see the wall of water approaching, getting closer and closer to where we sat in the lake. At first it looked like a fog draping the atmosphere and moving nearer to where we stayed in a shallow part of the sandy water. I observed as the rain got closer. I could see the droplets in the water, the ripples from each small bead forming tiny waves that continued until they reached the edge of the shore. The atmosphere was more beautiful at this moment than any view I had ever encountered before.

Most people would argue that sunsets harbour the most attractive scenery. They like the way that the colours begin to explode in the sky; they like to watch them fade as the sun vanishes into the horizon. This view was more beautiful than that, more touching than colours that fade as night draws closer. It was more alluring than the reds, oranges, and yellows that fill the sky with their company. It was not crowded with colors that would eventually fade. Rather, it was a simple moment that I knew I would always remember. Even though I was full of fear and uncertainty, wondering if lightning would strike the water, we sat there in the lake. We were laughing and chatting and smiling at each other.

The colours, though gray and muted, were almost more valuable than a sky so bright and full of pigmentation. I was happy at that moment to just sit and cherish where I was. I didn’t need passionate colours exploding in the sky to enjoy the view. I didn’t need it to be hot and sunny; I didn’t need the lake to be perfectly clear. I didn’t care if the conditions were perfect. I just wanted to savour the moment that I had, the moment to sit there with my mother and appreciate what makes a moment beautiful.

We watched as a wall of rain travelled across the water, anticipating that it would soon cover us as well. It all came down quickly, nimble and swift, to envelop our figures in the water. It was like when someone turns off a light switch; suddenly, vivid, polished shapes became imperfect, blurry outlines. I remember the feeling of being soaked and not knowing the difference between the water in the lake and the rain falling on top of me as it grew heavier. I remember hearing the first rumbling of thunder, wondering if it was a truck travelling on the road up the hill, or if it was an imminent blast of lightning travelling towards us. I remember running back out of the water. We forgot that our towels would also be soaked and stained with the chaos that the storm had brought.

I had not realized at that moment how important that memory of swimming in the rain with my mom would become. It was an unusual occurrence that would shape the way that I perceive the world, even now. I learned that day that fear doesn’t amend the situation you face. Whether you feel afraid or not, the storm is still going to come. The storm will still shroud the lake, the ripples reaching out to graze the shore. What matters is not the storm itself, but how you will stand before it breaks. Do you worry, fearing the things that could happen, or do you sit, waiting, watching the beauty of the storm as it approaches?