“Our desires are much like that, dear one,” Grandpa replied. Pausing on the pathway, he leaned
against a rock, shook his head and sighed. “We chase our desires our entire lives. To achieve
them, we put ourselves in difficult and often painful circumstances. If we achieve these desires
too soon they die and lose their beauty. Often it is not until we become old and feeble, that we
realize the happiness and beauty we so desperately sought was there all the while. Someone
caring and loving was one call away, with open hands and pure heart. It seems that for a time,
you forgot that it was your cousin, my smiling boy, who used to catch those lightening bugs for
you.”
Grandpa longed to remind Mona of the smiling boy’s love for her, a love that she took for
granted, but her failed marriage left her heart scarred and afraid to love. “I must guard my heart
against passion, I’ve already paid the price for following it the first time,” she thought.
Uncomfortable with the truth in his words, Mona tried to change the subject. “Grandpa, see how
pleasant the weather is today, let’s enjoy it.”
Chuckling, her wise grandfather would not be dissuaded. “Let’s go together, Mona, hold my
hand and take me down to welcome my smiling boy, my poet grandson. I’ve never read his
poems but I always feel his poetry; his poetry touches my heart.”
The clouds were beginning to clear and a lovely rainbow stretched across the brightening sky
when Grandpa shouted with happiness. “Look there, Mona, right under the rainbow, my smiling
boy, on his white mare!”
She saw him waving his hand and started to wave back, but stopped. Grandpa caught her hand
and waved it for her, laughing out loud. Rays of sunshine came through the clouds, beaming
upon Grandfather’s smiling boy, the sweet poet. On his mare ascending the mountain, he
reminded Mona of the Greek god Zephyr, god of the West Wind