Catching Up from Yesteryear

This is a photgraph I took of a framed print that was on the wall in my hospital room when Anne was born. It’s the Northern Lights; Aurora Borealis---a shattered rainbow seen only in the darkened night sky. I found this bittersweet information on the Internet not long ago...

The Northern Lights and Folklore

Since time immemorial, through different cultures and whenever they occur, there have been many beliefs about the Northern Lights. The Inuit around Hudson Bay had the following explanation of what they saw:

The sky is a huge dome of hard material arched over the flat earth. On the outside there is light. In the dome there are a large number of small holes, and through these holes you can see the light from the outside when it is dark. And through these holes the spirits of the dead can pass into the heavenly regions. The way to Heaven leads over a narrow bridge, which spans an enormous abyss. The spirits that were already in Heaven light torches to guide the feet of the new
arrivals.

These torches are called the Northern Lights. In Middle-Age Europe, the Northern Lights were thought to be reflections of heavenly warriors. As a kind of posthumous reward, the soldiers that gave their lives for their King and country were allowed to battle on the skies forever. The Northern Lights were the breath of these brave soldiers as they resumed their fight in the skies.

It's just silly folklore, but the Aurora Borealis has touched me quite profoundly since the day the colorful lights of my rainbow were shattered. Anne is on the other side of the Rainbow now. But she has left my heart with a poignant reminder of how spectacularly brilliant she really was; how astonishing her sister must have been. They are both even more astounding than Aurora Borealis--a shattered rainbow seen only through the darkness...