Life: Sucker punches and double rainbows.

Every so often, you experience something so inexplicably extraordinary, you simply have to try and attach some appropriate words to document it.

Here is my attempt to do so:

Last week, life just sucker punched my husband-to-be and a whole mess of people who absolutely adored a man named David Oliphant. He was their friend, cycling teammate, husband, son, uncle and mentor; someone that people just seemed to gravitate toward thanks to his massively huge smile and, it seems, the genuinity to back it.

David was a 47-year-old competitive cyclist. Probably among the fittest 47 year olds you'd encounter.

David had cardiac arrest as he finished a road race last week. He did not recover.

A group of his cycling teammates, relatives and friends gathered last night to say goodbye in a way they knew would best honor David: a memorial lap around the track at which they last saw their comrade alive.

It was a rainy, cold evening. Bad by even the Pacific Northwest's standards. I felt nearly mad that God would dare give David's family even more yuck as I watched them...huddled together with umbrellas, shivering and crying as they watched this event unfold.

Then, the most amazing thing happened.

In near Hollywood style, the sky cleared. Just flat-out cleared, in like five minutes. Maybe less.

And there it was, a double rainbow.

Even more awesome (and I do mean "awesome" in its most literal sense)? It arched, end-to-end, directly over the finish line. In full color, just as the pack of about 300 riders silently pedaled across.

This astounding act of nature completely transformed the entire event. Still a horrifically somber gathering, that rainbow demonstrated (at least to me) that even in the saddest, most unfair, what-on-earth-were-you-thinking-god? moments?  

Life still has its double rainbows.