Rain

I remember it rained the day before.

Heavy enough to keep us all inside.

Gathered around the phone, waiting for it's ring. We probaby would have done so anyways. The rain just validated our childish fear. It stopped at one point, but it did not register to any of us - the television's silent moving pictures registered no more - just shadows on the back of our minds. You cannot cry, you cannot cry, you cannot cry.

It was long past everyone had fallen asleep. She knew I would be up. The shrill ring of the phone was soft and distant. A haunting and familiar dream.

I cannot put into words the rest of this story well enough for you to understand. There were not many words exchanged as one may imagine - I picked up the phone and did not have to utter a sound, the sorrow seeping through the receiver was felt on my cold hands. It was the first time I had heard an adult cry. I knew she would never let me hear her cry again so I took in every gasp or breath, every sob that I imagined shook through her body. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, she loved you so much..."

Dead, passed away, deceased, GONE

None of these words seemed appropriate to describe her. She was so much more. These blunt, ugly words could never sum up what she really was - alive, alive in our memories and in our hearts.

The sun was rising at some point after I hung up the phone - I do not know how long I sat there, staring blankly out my window. It could have been 5 minutes, or 5 hours. But the sun did rise, like it always has. Just like every other day. But the world was different..maybe for me, maybe for anyone whose life she had touched, maybe for all. Everything magnified; luminescant dew drops dripping from the trees, your dreams under a microscope until they shatter into the ground.

The rain had gone on it's way. Trees hung heavy, branches and leaves concentrated with water, weeping. The only word I can try to use to grasp this kind of day is "clear" - everything so precise. The streets were wet and it was silent. Without the heavy, pounding rain drumming its way into the Earth we appreciate this silence. Every little thing - a weed, poking up from the sidewalk's cracks, a flower driven into the ground from the storm. And the sky - the sky above the stately trees, so blue. A faded blue, a blue like an old friend, someone I used to know. How small I am here with my "cold feet" in the morning grass.

Of course I will always remember this day. But what makes me remember every single color I saw... was the rain.

I remember this day so clearly, simply because of the rain.

I remember it rained the day before.