Summer's Rain 🌧️

Ziv was eight years old. He had always loved the rain. When the Summer sun heated his skin to melting and the sky turned a darker shade...he would escape when Momma was not looking and go jump in the puddles, his clothes drenched in the downpour.

She would quarrel, dry his hair vigorously and make hot chocolate. He sure was happy then.

But the next summer she had become ill. And five summers later she bade them goodbye and was laid in the ground.

Now summers are not summers anymore. Ziv was now thirteen, he had dreaded summers for five years. His Daddy tried his best to be brave and encourage his son to be brave also.

Still. Ziv no longer jumped in puddles or walked in the rain. He thought it cruel and blamed it for taking his mother. One day she had played with him in the rain, then she got sick...Ziv thought it was his fault. But the rain had nothing to do with her illness, it was no one's fault...it just happened...as things will often go in the way of this world.

His therapist said the rain would heal him...he should seek his salvation in the healing waters from the sky...maybe in that place, he would meet his mother in between the drops, jump in puddles and dance with her once more.

Salvation. He looked up the meaning of the word. A source or means of being saved from harm, ruin or loss. Well, he needed to be saved for sure, Ziv was tired of being sad for such a long time.

🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️🌧️

Thirteen year old Ziv decided to take his therapist's advice. This summer would not be the one he wanted...but it would have to do.

He walked out into the rain...imagining himself eight years old again. He bent down, touched his finger to the puddle...and a strange feeling overcame him. Like an electric charge awakening the past...where he was happy, alive with youth and laughing again.

It was as if the molecules of his body (he loved biology) reacted to the water and it to him. It transported him back to when he was in that happy place again.

He glanced up...and there was his mother, jumping in the puddle, her flowery umbrella held aloft. He was glad that she had the umbrella. Her head would be protected this time. It would maybe keep her from becoming ill again.

"Come my son. jump with me". His mother laughed happily, calling out to his father who walked by, his spirit seeming low.

Father, startled, could not believe what he was seeing. He rubbed his eyes...squinted...and cried a little.

Then he joined his son in what he thought was just a dream.

Oh, how cheerful was that summer evening. His mother had returned, just for one moment to let them know that she was happy...and that they should let go and be happy too.

Summers were not sad anymore. That day changed their lives and brought back happy continuations. The Summer rain now carries that delicious blend of warmth and melancholy, like the sky remembering how to cry gently.

Lovely, evocative memories soaked in imagination.

🌧️

Rain now drips through the pages of their memories.

The past resurfaces with warm droplets and umbrellas bloom like slow-moving flowers under the storm’s breath.

A rainy cityscape becomes a dreamscape filled with sentient shelter and wonder-filled tales.

"We never knew happiness until the summer rain spoke". Ziv wrote in his poetry class.

"Contemplative...rain isn’t just a sound, but the absence of everything else". His teacher replied approvingly.

Now Ziv runs barefoot on wet pathways, dancing with the ghosts of all his mother's remembered moments.

☔☔☔

Summer now opens like umbrellas of jasmine on rainy nights.