When the Rain Ends

by Mary Ellen Taylor

What-ifs didn’t matter. If Dani had learned anything, it was that the universe didn’t care what she wanted. Like the ocean, it swept in and reshaped the beaches and dunes at will, and it never once considered the destruction in its wake.

“And then after the sunshine, the rain returns. You can always count on tough times.”

“I can count on one hand the times I really had my life under control,” her father said. “And that feeling fooled me into believing I was past the bad times. And then, of course, it all turned on a dime.”

“Bad times are guaranteed. God knows I’ve seen my share, and so have you. No getting around it. But if you hang in there long enough, the world does turn, and the good times follow.”

Then he’d stopped resenting the future and started searching for moments of joy in the present. Do not squander time. It is the stuff life is made of.

It wasn’t the challenge of the voyage that frightened him but his ability to weather any more storms.