When Rain Falls, My Memories Rise

When Rain Falls, My Memories Rise

There is something sacred about the sound of rain.

Not the kind that lashes the windows in fury, but the soft, persistent kind—the one that seeps into the soil and the soul. The kind that slows the world just enough to let the past catch up.

Every time the rain begins to fall, my memories stir.

Not just one. Not just two.

But a flood of moments, cascading down like the water on the windowpane.

The House with the Blue Porch

When I was eight, I lived in a house with a blue porch. The paint peeled like sunburned skin, and the screen door always creaked like it had secrets to tell. It was there, sitting cross-legged with a book and a mug of warm cocoa, that I first learned to love the rain.

Grandma would hum to herself while knitting, and my older brother would trace raindrops with his finger, betting which one would reach the bottom first.

Those days felt infinite.

Until they weren’t.

The Day It Poured

There was one day, one storm, that I cannot forget.

It was the day my brother left.

He didn’t say goodbye the way people in stories do. There was no long letter, no hug at the train station. Just the sound of raised voices the night before, and an empty room the next morning.

It rained for two straight days.

And I cried with the sky.

Since then, every time it rains, I remember that silence—the kind that follows when something you love disappears without warning.

The First Kiss in the Rain

Years later, when I was sixteen, I had my first kiss under an umbrella that wasn’t big enough for two.

His name was Jonah. He smelled like rain and cinnamon, and his smile could make you forget the thunder.

We danced between puddles in the school parking lot. The rain soaked our uniforms, and we didn’t care.

“I hope it always rains when I see you,” he whispered.

But life is cruel like that.

He moved away the following summer.

I’ve kissed others since then, but no one has ever made the rain feel like magic again.

A Letter in the Storm

The last letter I received from my father came on a rainy Thursday.

It was scribbled on the back of a diner receipt. Typical of him—always halfway out the door, never knowing how to stay.

But the letter was different.

“I know I wasn’t always the man you needed,” it read. “But I never stopped being proud of you. Every time it rains, I think of you. You were my little storm cloud, always asking big questions.”

He died three months later.

Now, when it rains, I read that letter again.

And I forgive him.

Rain, Memory, and Me

Isn’t it strange how water can hold so much?

The scent of wet earth reminds me of my mother planting tulips in April. The rhythm of raindrops on a metal roof brings me back to sleepovers with cousins and ghost stories that made us squeal and giggle.

Even the cold of a sudden downpour reminds me of loneliness—of walking home after arguments, soaked to the skin, but unwilling to run.

Rain has a way of washing the world clean… but never wiping it blank.

It doesn’t forget.

It holds our joys and our grief like songs whispered into puddles.

Learning to Let it Fall

For a long time, I avoided the rain. I saw it only as a trigger, a reminder of things I’d lost.

But now, I welcome it.

I walk without an umbrella.

I let the drops touch my skin and carry the weight of memory down my cheeks.

Because the truth is—when rain falls, my memories rise.

And I finally understand: they’re not here to haunt me. They’re here to remind me I’ve lived.

That I’ve loved.

That I’ve lost… and still stood.

So let it rain.

Let the sky speak.

I’ll be listening.