Renzo's Rainbow » Mayumi Cruz

RENZO’S RAINBOW

When the skies are bare and a rainbow isn’t there, how do you find one?

In this beautiful, touching story of Grandpa Choy and little Renzo, discover how a child’s persistent search for a rainbow led to an invaluable message of love and hope that will melt your heart and lift your spirit.

Featuring the breathtaking island of Batanes in the Philippines and lovable Filipino characters, this book teaches us that when we need a rainbow to cheer us up, it may not always be up in the skies.

It may be much nearer than we think.

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Renzo’s Rainbow is a book for those in mourning to help find the strength and inspiration to overcome grief and sorrow.

Grief is such a heavy feeling, something that never really goes away with the passage of time. It will fool you into thinking it’s gone, it’s passed, it’s over.

But a word, a photo, a memory, will spring out, catching you in your most vulnerable moment, and you’re back to that day when the pain of losing someone you love was so overwhelming and devastating.

And yet, when you’d like to just let yourself be buried in sadness, the living touches your heart and reminds you you’re still needed.

We could mourn and cry for the dead…for a time.

But the living—the people who love us and need us still—are far more worthy of the rest of our days.

AMAZON

OTHER EBOOKSTORES

DIRECT FROM AUTHOR

FREE READ: EXCERPT

The sun shyly peeped out from behind the clouds after the rain shower. Its rays slowly lighted up the green hills above the shore, the rock forms, Arius trees, lighthouses, volcanoes, and the deep blue sea around the island of Batan in Batanes — Land of the Ivatans, Home of the Winds, Scotland of the Philippines.

In the town of Mahatao, an old man and a little boy walk along Homoron White Beach, a strip of white sand around high stone cliffs for their daily morning swim in the Homoron Blue Lagoon, a natural, refreshing pool of clear blue green waters atop a flat coral bed hidden in between rocks.

Grandpa Choy pressed down the talugong on his head which the wind wanted to carry away.

Then as he looked upward to the east, he excitedly said, “Renzo, look! Look up there in the sky! Past the Tayid Lighthouse, above the thick liveng, over the Marlboro Hills! What do you see?”

Renzo raised his head up high, looking at the direction he was told. With bright eyes and a wide smile, he replied: “A rainbow, Grandpa! There’s a rainbow in the sky!”

Grandpa Choy flashed his ever present grin.

“Know what, Grandpa?” Renzo remembered, “My teacher in school told us a legend of how the rainbow came to be: Once there was a farmer who fell in love with a star maiden, whom he caught dancing in his farm. He hid her magical wings, stopping her from leaving. They married and had a son They were happy. But one day, his wife found her wings. She flew back to the skies with their son. The poor farmer was left broken-hearted, realizing the wrong he has done. The heavens took pity and built him a colored bridge so he can still visit his family, and that’s the rainbow we see.”

Grandpa Choy gently told him, “That’s a nice Ifugao tale, my child. But a rainbow’s not meant for just one person. It’s a reminder of God’s mercy to all His creation. It speaks of His kindness, of a promise He made, that never shall floodwaters destroy all life again. It means that rain will not go on forever; that storms and typhoons will always pass, no matter how gloomy, no matter how dark. Rainbows are meant to cheer us all up.”