In the past weeks, those were the most profound words I heard. They also took me to highs and lows that I’ll likely carry for some time.

After surgery, now 3+ weeks ago, I was in recovery and floating between anesthesia-coma and uncontrollable yammering when Dr. Nostril appeared and stated, “No lymphoma!” We shared an emphatic double-high-five and I resumed my napping and babbling. Soon enough, pretty nurses were feeding me pop-sickles and I was stumbling home.

Surgeries. I’ve had a few. But then again, too many to mention. As procedures go, this one was easy. Headache, nausea, and other unpleasantries notwithstanding, I was (more or less) back in a new life state of mind in a matter of days. Best of all, I again got to find out that I’m cancer-free. Whooo-ie! That news is always right as rain.

• The clouds thicken

Speaking of rain, the latest chapter in my cancer drama and trauma seems trivial already. Because last week, a dear auntie who was a second mother of sorts—I’ll call her Dear Auntie—passed away. She taught in elementary schools forever, loved to sing and sew and bake (the best sugar cookies ever), and cherished rural culture and nature. So she also loved rain.

I was blessed to be present and help out for some of her final weeks and days. Her goal was simple: To go home. Her care team embraced the challenge and everyone held that faith like a lucky locket. We are tough, feisty Scandinavians, and she hung on and fought fearlessly; I firmly believed she would make it home.

It’s one thing to endure your own suffering. But watching someone you love suffer? That’s much worse. Your own stubbornness becomes powerless, yet you feel every pang and strain.  You run out of tough.

• The struggle for life

Life can throw nasty fastballs at your head and…everything changes. At this point in the summer, I’m usually in Okoboji enjoying a spirited vacation—after dropping the kids and their friends at a timeless, week-long camp. Instead, I was again in hospitals—reading to Dear Auntie and helping create plans full of hope, but also watching helplessly as promise turned to pain.

A chaplain stopped by on the morning we agreed to transfer her to another city with a noted specialty hospital for her condition. Chaplain put us at ease with her gracious and chatty ways. She was a Gustie, and I’m an Ole. So she sang me a jokey version of “Um Ya Ya” (St. Olaf’s fight song) and I wondered aloud…Will these Ole sneers and Iowa jokes ever cease? (Nope.)

Then she asked Dear Auntie if there were anything she’d like to pray for. After some thinking, Dear Auntie replied, “Healing, family, and rain.”

• Turn, turn, turn

Dear Auntie was right: Much of the Midwest had gone dry and crusty—like over-baked cookies. As lifelong farm-stock, she was always in love with the land, the crops, the theater of weather, and the beauty of the seasons. “To everything there is a season” is more than a Bible verse and a song: It’s a way of life.

The day after we prayed for rain was muggy and gray. I drove from Sioux City to Lincoln to see her in her new facility, and later back again, watching river bluffs and dark skies that churned like distant smoke. Just after sundown, the sky turned black, resounding thunder cracked, and that long-awaited downpour with drops as big as marbles watered the crops and soaked the earth.

• A time to be born, a time to die

She took her final breath last Sunday morning. Her heart could do no more. So Dear Auntie is home now, even if it wasn’t the “home” we prayed for.

And yet the heavens sent rain. And it has rained many times since. Indeed, Dear Auntie’s most unselfish prayer has been answered. She would have it no other way.

Rain. We got this.

Thanks for listening…