the power of perspective

When my parents married on February 13, 1966, in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, it was raining. Rain is obviously not uncommon on a tropical island, but legend has it that this wasn’t just a passing shower: it was positively pouring. Storm sewers were overflowing. Street gutters were filling. And my mother — who can tend to worry in the best of times — was beside herself.

The story goes that my father thought quickly. “This is nothing to worry about,” he said to my mom. “In my family, rain is good luck — it bodes well for our marriage. This is Walrond Weather.”

As of this year, Mom & Dad have been married for fifty-eight years.

I was told this story many times when I was growing up: any time something big was happening in my life — like a presentation at school, say, or I was attending a big event — and it was raining, my dad would say, “Good. This is Walrond Weather. It’s all going to work out fine.” And damned if it didn’t, every time. In fact, on the day I married Marcus, London was uncharacteristically sunny, and I was low-key worried. I remember actually praying for rain. And lo and behold: the moment that we exchanged our vows, the skies opened up for a few minutes until we were officially “pronounced husband and wife” — and then the sun returned.

As of this year, we’ll be married for twenty-two years. Walrond Weather, man.

It even works in hindsight: as many of you know, seven years ago (good Lord, has it been seven years?!), our family lost our home and everything in it to Hurricane Harvey. As the floodwaters seeped into our house, rising faster than our minds could comprehend, I remember thinking, so much for Walrond Weather. But in the days after the waters subsided, our family witnessed kindness and generosity from people like we’d never seen before, from neighbours and friends and even strangers. One man showed up to help us muck out our house after driving five hours from New Orleans. At the end of the day he turned around and drove back, displaced Houstonians had booked all the hotels. When I asked him why he took it upon himself to drive all the way to Houston and back, he simply said, “You Houstonians were wonderful to us during Hurricane Katrina. It was the least I could do.” And I never even got the man’s name.

While I wouldn’t wish the loss and devastation of a natural disaster on anyone, maybe the gift of being able to experience the boundless kindness of folks made Harvey Walrond Weather after all.

Now, obviously, I don’t actually think there’s something magical about the rain (and even if I did, the stress induced by having to rebuild after Harvey would’ve disabused me of that notion). But maybe there’s something magical about shifting our perspectives, right? About using something ordinary to inspire a moment of hope or wonder?

I’m reminded of an old video that my friend, filmmaker Hailey Bartholomew, made over a decade ago, about finding hearts (and squares!):