Lessons from the rain

For always, when it rains it pours, as the old adage goes. Whenever it rains, the memories of bygone days somehow keep coming back like a song's sweet refrain. Oh, just how we enjoyed ourselves running around in our backyard just simply playing in the rain. And yes, the typical smell of the vapor emanating from the asphalted streets after a downpour; the black umbrella we used to shield ourselves from the rain or the newspaper we covered our head with; the black-outs we experienced due to a heavy rain, lightning and thunderstorm; the taste of steaming hot chicken noodle soup at home on a rainy afternoon. All these and more bring forth memories of our beautiful past when the world was more peaceful, simpler in more ways than one, when there was less of the more - less pollution, less congestion, less traffic.

What is so significant about the rain? Oh well, you have your memories just as I have my own about the rain: It was raining when I wrote my first poem. It was raining on the first day that I entered college. It was raining when we sent off a dear classmate to his final resting place. It was raining when... Oh, you can think of 101 things or special events in your life accompanied by rain.

The coming of the rainy days is one aspect in our lives when we are all equal. When it rains, we all get wet. The rain may bring inconvenience but it does come as a blessing sometimes, a welcome-to-my-life thing. Seasons come and go. The earth revolves around the sun. Time changes. But the same rainy days that occurred in our time is happening to our kids now. After the rain comes the sun, a rainbow, or a starry sky on some enchanted evenings. Another promising day of brightness comes after the darkness. The sunrise after the sunset. It's another day. A new beginning. It doesn't rain forever, does it?