Dear Jack,

This morning we drove the first half of the way to school in the rain, but the skies began to clear by the second half.

As they did, I announced, “Jack! Look, in the sky! It’s a rainbow! Do you see it?”

You looked through the windshield, asking, “Where? Where?” but not understanding what you were actually looking for.

Finally, you looked above the green I-65 South sign and finally saw what I did.

“I see yellow choo-choo, Daddy!”

That sounds pretty random when I tell it, but I have to consider: You’ve never seen a rainbow until today.

To you, it was a yellow train chugging across the sky.

Despite my 29 and a half year head start into life, I still am fascinated by rainbows; as you obviously are too.

Actually, it’s pretty hard to look up in the sky and see a rainbow and not at least think, “Cool, a rainbow.”

A rainbow is a universal sign of hope, I assume.

I have to assume that as hard as life can be, a person has to see a rainbow and consider that there is hope beyond what we see. For you, I would have to think that life is already more like that already.

You haven’t failed in life, yet.

You haven’t been legitimately disappointed about anything.

You haven’t regretted anything in your past.

You haven’t only wished you would have known sooner.

Hopefully, that’s where I come in. I want you to learn from my mistakes. Sure, you’ll make plenty of your own mistakes; that’s part of life.

But I want to help fast forward you through the learning curve of life.

It isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but there are clues of hope embedded into everyday life, if we know what to look for.

Love,

Daddy