The Sound of Rain

The first thing I noticed was the sound. Not the gentle, polite drizzle that whispers against windows, but a persistent, almost stubborn rainfall that seemed determined to be heard. It filled the room with its insistent rhythm, a sound both familiar and strange, as if it were trying to tell me something I had long forgotten. I sat on the edge of my bed, laptop abandoned on my knees, and let it wash over me.

It reminded me of the nights I used to wait for my father to come home. Those nights now belonged to another lifetime, a version of me who had waited with both impatience and hope, thinking that the sound of the rain could somehow shorten the distance between us. Back then, he was a hero of small gestures—never a man who knocked, but one who simply appeared, letting the smell of wet earth and motor oil trail behind him like a signature. The door would open, and suddenly the world felt complete. I would hear the rain through the tiny cracks of the window and imagine him navigating streets slick with water, racing home through puddles and wind, just to be there for me.

But years had passed. Time had stretched between us like an invisible wall, and he wasn’t coming back—not really. Life had claimed him in ways I could not reach, and I had claimed myself in ways I hadn’t yet realized. The man I had waited for as a child had become a memory, and the child who had waited for him was now a stranger living in my own body.

Still, the rain today felt like a conversation with someone I used to know. I pressed my hands against the cold glass, letting my fingertips trace invisible patterns as I remembered the small, intimate details that had defined him. The careless way he would stir his coffee, spilling some over the saucer, and laugh as though it were the funniest thing in the world. The way he would hum under his breath when doing something mundane, and how his smile would crinkle the corners of his eyes just enough to make everything softer. These were details I thought I had long since forgotten, buried beneath years of routine and distance—but here they were, returned to me in the rhythm of raindrops.

I reached for my phone. There was no call to make, no message to send. He was thousands of miles away, living a life that had little room for me anymore. And yet, the rain made me feel as if I could reach him, as if I could whisper to him across that vast expanse of time and space. I wanted to tell him I had remembered everything—the way he laughed, the little gestures of love, the quiet strength in his silences. I wanted to tell him I missed him, not just as a father, but as a man who had carried more than his share of burdens and had done so imperfectly, beautifully, and humanly.

And then, almost abruptly, I realized it wasn’t him I was missing. It was me—the younger version of myself who had believed in reunions, in the magic of a simple “hello” through the door. That self, that child, had trusted in small miracles and had lived in a world where the sound of rain could feel like hope. The rain had brought me back to that self, even if only for a moment, and it was an unsettling, comforting kind of homecoming.

I smiled at my reflection, blurred by condensation on the windowpane, and allowed the sound to fill the room—not as a reminder of loss, but as a quiet, honest presence. It wasn’t sorrow that clung to me; it was recognition. It was knowing that the world was both larger and smaller than I thought, and that memory had the power to make absent moments tangible again.

When the rain softened into a gentle mist, a kind of silence settled over the house, tender and unobtrusive. I felt lighter, though nothing had changed in reality. There was no call, no miracle, no sudden reunion. But there was acknowledgment, and sometimes that was enough. The rain had reminded me that life is made of these small, fleeting truths—moments of connection, memory, and self-recognition that don’t require permission or explanation.

I left the window and went to the kitchen, pouring myself a cup of coffee. I stirred it too quickly, spilling a drop on the counter, and laughed softly at the absurdity of old habits that refused to leave. Some habits, I realized, are worth keeping. They tether us to ourselves, to our histories, to the people we have loved and continue to love in secret, in absence, in memory.

And as I sat back down with the warmth of the cup in my hands, I let the rain continue to fall outside, steady, insistent, alive. I let it remind me that even when the people we miss are gone—or distant—the echoes of them live on, patiently waiting for us to listen.