When I was five years old I remember looking up at the summer storm clouds in Florida and wondering where the sun goes when it storms. The darkness of the storms always frightened me and made me long for the sunlight to return. It wasn’t until my first time on a plane that I discovered that the sun never really goes away, the clouds just block our view of it. As the plane soared above the line of puffy white clouds my eyes were drawn to the beautiful rays of sunlight sitting gently above, waiting to shine through.

Throughout the course of my life I’ve encountered “storms” and challenges that made it difficult to find the sunlight behind the clouds. The day after Christmas my junior year of high school my Dad gathered all 5 of us kids around him and shared that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and melanoma. The moment his voice choked out the words, “I have cancer” felt like the moments in my childhood looking up at the dark grey sky wishing I could find the sunlight. My Dad was able to fight for 2 and a half years before he died. He tried every treatment and fought with everything he physically had, but it wasn’t enough. I was 19 years old and although my head told me to be grateful that he was able to be there for my high school years and graduation, my heart knew how much this was going to hurt throughout the rest of my life. The weight of this storm cloud felt unbearable. The incredible light my Dad brought into my life for 19 years was gone, forever.

The day my Dad died my Mom took us to the Catholic High School I graduated from, the one that my Dad taught World History and Government and Economics at for 10 years. The office workers told us to go look in the Chapel at the memorial they set up to honor my Dad. There on a little table was a framed picture of my Dad and his iconic smile sitting alongside 2 big beautiful sunflowers a candle and a rosary draped over the picture frame. As the tears clouded my eyes the blur of the 2 sunflowers shone in my eyes. “I love you Daddy”, I whispered to myself. It was in that moment that he gave me my first “sunflower sign”. This was the first of many “sunflower signs” from my Dad. No matter how dark it becomes in my life these signs remind me to always find the sunshine waiting for me behind the dark storm clouds.