Summer is Coming

The weather this past weekend – a short winter reprieve – reminded me of a short story I once read as a child by Ray Bradbury, All Summer in a Day. In it, a young girl is locked in a closet by her jealous classmates for the two short hours in seven years that the sun actually makes an appearance on the planet, Venus. Bradbury’s Venus is a viciously stormy, dark, and dank colony of Earth, and the protagonist, Margot, is the only child among them who has any memory of sunny days above ground.

The other children, resentful, yet disbelieving, of her ability to even remember the sun, shove her in a dark closet while the teacher isn’t looking, where she quietly accepts her fate. Those children have their moment in the sun – dancing, playing, and soaking the warm rays – and they don’t once give Margot a thought.

Until the rain returns, that is. And she silently exits the closet. But you never find out if there is even the slightest bit of remorse in any of the children.

I’d like to believe there was, though. That their hatefulness wasn’t altogether intentional.

It’s so easy to forget in the midst of so much joy the sadness and heartache of others, even when we’ve caused it. But especially when we haven’t. And in some ways, that’s just the way it is. We can’t spend our time rejecting our own happiness because of the misfortune of others. Yes, we all have to live on Venus sometimes, longing for even a few hours to step out of the rain – or, as the case is for us this winter, snow. To discard the gloom and doom life often visits upon us for as long as possible. To cover our ears against the heavy patter of raindrops around us. Even when it’s falling on people we care a lot about just before they’re shoved into their dark closet.

We really should know better, though.

While in the story, the children’s behavior is downright malicious – no one would disagree – for whatever reason, their hatred of Margot, fueled by jealousy, directs them to exclude her from the smallest possible pleasure. A moment of pure bliss in the sun. And I bet we’d say we would never do that to anyone, never be that selfish. But we do sometimes, and we are. We have our moments in the sun while our own friends are weeping. We don’t want to take on other people’s misery. When the sun is out for a few hours in our own lives, we’d like to enjoy it.

I thought of this story because there are important people in my own life who are stuck in the closet on Venus. Although I didn’t put them there, I want them to know they are loved. That I am here for them in any way I possibly can to lead them back to the sunlight, even if I, too, am stuck in my own closet on Venus.

Thankfully, we don’t really live on that Venus. The door will open. The spring will come. The sun will return. And everything will be alright again.