When My Father Became the Rain

Title: When My Father Became the Rain

Write By { Said Idrees Sadat}

I was six when I first learned that death doesn’t always come with thunder.

Sometimes, it comes quietly—like the way my father left, with no final hug, no last words. Just a closed door, and the sound of my mother whispering prayers into her scarf at midnight.

The morning after the funeral, it rained. Soft, steady drops tapping the windowpane like someone trying to be remembered. I sat on the edge of the living room couch, legs swinging above the floor, watching water trickle down the glass.

“Do you know what the rain is?” my mother asked, kneeling beside me.

I shrugged.

“It’s your father,” she said gently. “He didn’t want to leave you completely. So now, when it rains, he’s visiting.”

I didn’t speak. Just leaned my head against her shoulder and stared at the sky that had suddenly become so personal.

From that day on, rain stopped being just water. It became a presence. I’d run outside with bare feet, palms open, laughing through tears. And every drop felt like a fingerprint.

In school, kids would grumble when storms rolled in. I’d quietly smile.

They never knew my dad was there with us, humming in the gutters, dancing off umbrellas.

Years passed. I stopped telling people that my father was the rain. Some memories are too sacred to explain. But on lonely nights, I’d still crack open the window and listen to the drizzle as if it were reading me to sleep.

I carried that story with me through life like a stone in my pocket—heavy sometimes, but never forgotten. I grew up, moved out, started a family of my own. But whenever it rained, I’d pause. I’d smile. And I’d whisper, “Hi, Dad.”

Then, last year, when my son turned six, I found him crying by the window. His grandfather—my father-in-law—had passed. I saw the same question in his eyes that once lived in mine.

I knelt beside him the same way my mother had knelt beside me.

“Do you know what the rain is?” I asked.

He looked up at me with tear-glossed eyes and shook his head.

“It’s grandpa,” I told him. “He’s saying hello.”

He blinked. Then, slowly, he smiled.

And outside, the rain kept falling—quietly, steadily, beautifully. Just like it always had.

The cycle had begun again.

Grief never truly ends, but sometimes it changes shape. Sometimes it falls from the sky in droplets, soaking the earth and making things grow.

Sometimes, when you love someone that much, even the clouds remember.

Now, whenever it rains, we sit together by the window. My son tells me stories about his grandfather—his laugh, his favorite songs, the way he’d always sneak him extra cookies when no one was looking. And I nod, listening, watching the sky.

In those moments, I see my father. I see my son. And I see how love stretches through generations, quietly, like rainfall. Maybe that’s the magic of it all.

The rain isn’t just memory—it’s presence. It’s connection. It’s love that refuses to leave.

And some days, when the sky opens up, I open up too. I let it all in. And somehow, I feel whole again.