The magic in a rainbow

My gaze kept drifting between the trees rushing past outside the car window and the face of the woman I love in the driver's seat.  Today was a difficult day, I was going home.  My vacation to see her wasn't nearly long enough and I did not want to get on that plane.  We hadn't really talked much since getting in the car and my guess was that she was lost in her own thoughts just like I was. 

 
I will never know what she was thinking about that day, but my thoughts were along the lines of not wanting to lose her again and not wanting to go home to the drama I knew awaited me.  I think what brought me out of my thoughts was the feeling of her thumb rubbing on my hand, and I looked down at our hands and smiled.  There was a little rainbow dancing on our joined hands, moving over our skin as the car followed the contours of the road. 

What happened next, a muttered, "Oh shit!" from L followed by her tearing her hand away from mine so she could steer us to safety, changed my life forever.  We both came out of the accident in one piece thankfully, and I later told her what I'd seen the light doing on our joined hands, but it took me just over six months from the day of the accident to make a connection. 

Now I don't normally make a big deal out of my spiritual beliefs but I think its important here to note that I do not consider myself a Christian.  I have no problems with God, mind you, just many of his followers.  That said, I'm not sure what exactly prompted me to think about it, but as I was driving to the bank today it hit me: God made a promise with a rainbow after the flood that he would never again do something so drastic.

I can't help but wonder if maybe the sweet little rainbow dancing across mine and L's joined hands was a promise too.  A promise that this time the love I have will last, that I won't lose her to my own stupidity again, or that we would survive what was about to happen to us.  I'm not sure.  Maybe it was just a fluke of light shining through the windshield at just the right angle.  The logical part of me says its probably the latter, but the part of me that believes in magic, miracles, and higher powers really wants to believe in the former. 

Rainbows have been considered a sign of hope in many cultures, in others they have been considered a message.  Before the accident I just thought of them as beautiful flukes of nature, light reflecting through water (or sometimes glass/crystal).  I haven't seen one since that day but I'm pretty sure that the next time I do it won't just be a fluke to me anymore, it will be something a bit more magical.