Childhood Memories: Where Does Rain Come From?

Memories

When I was young and defenseless, and would stare out my window I wondered, what made God so mad? But even this powerful and frightening event was brilliantly beautiful and nothing brought more respect from within me as did those marvelous manifestations of God through nature. I suppose this is where my first understandings began to be formed about God himself, and this too would carry on into my life-but at a much latter time.

A New Experience

It was one of those summer rains. I was still, watching from my window, looking at the street light which gave the only light to our dead end street. It was a dim and yellow light. Yet it stood tall with its glossed black post. The street was empty except for one girl who was my neighbor. She was my age, dressed in a long t-shirt and shorts. She was completely wet from head to toe as she proceeded to play in the rain. When I saw her I was amazed. How could someone walk in the rain? I had never done it and was always told to never do it.  It never crossed my mind that playing in the rain could even be an option.  Yet watching as she looked happy and free I yearned to join her. Inside our apartment my mother was preparing some baked goods, sweet warm food which filled the house with warmth and a pleasant smell. It was a haply little cozy apartment. There was five of us. An older brother who was watching T.V and a younger sister who was in the kitchen watching my mother prepare the food.  After watching Kerri for some time I told everyone in the house, “look, its Kerri playing in the rain, she is all wet and barefoot, can you imagine?” My mother came over to the window, and simply said, “Kerri is just crazy, she is going to be all dirty and will probably get sick” and without giving it more thought went back to the kitchen.  I walked out on my porch.

“Hi Kerri.  What are you doing, are you crazy?”
– “Hi Armen, what do you mean?”
“Your playing in the rain”
-“Of course I am, it’s so much fun. The rain is warm and it feels great. You’ve never played in the rain? What are you afraid of?”

she said, smiling and laughing playfully revealing a gap in her teeth. She was fairly roundish, with full cheeks, long black curly hair and dark skin. Her eyes were big and alive full of life and adventure. I thought to myself looking at her and realized that I never played in the rain. Leaving my socks on the porch, and looking over my shoulder to make sure my mom was not looking I ran out under the street light.

Looking up at the light each drop of rain would ignite as it fell past the glow of yellow. It truly was fun and immediately I too was wet and heavy as my clothes filled with water. “Haha, your right, this is amazing. I never thought that something so simple as rain could be fun to play in.”
-“I know, I know…”
And as if it happened immediately I heard my mothers voice and realized that I better go back inside, I yelled back over my shoulder “See you tomorrow!” –  “Goodbye Armen.”

A Quite Moment

And it was in such paces that my childhood would flow. Those many chance meetings and events which shook who I was from within. I spent a lot of my life looking up at that street light. Especially in the winter, when if you stood directly under it and looked straight up it would seem that you were flying away up into space. The snow would begin to fly past your eyes quicker and quicker. And as a child many times looking up at the sky by that post I would dream of flying away somewhere far and out of this world. Maybe now I realize that even then I yearned to find something great, something that surpassed everything in this world. That light was always there, it was constant, and probably the only thing in my childhood that didn’t change with time (except that one time we ran it over with a car). It was the only thing that was there even if nothing else remained.

The Rain Falls on the Good and Evil Alike

Another rainstorm had begun, and it was only beginning to get dark outside.  All the kids were out playing in the rain.  And there I was among them.  We all stood under that warm rain and thought in our child-like innocence about the question, “where does rain come from?”. Everyone kept yelling out possible answers and all of them were fascinating.  Yet we didn’t know this little thing of life yet. Kerri was also in the crowd.
“Well I heard that when it rains, it means that God is crying and the rain drops are his tears.”
I looked at her and listened carefully. I really wanted to know what rain was too!  God is crying I thought to myself?  There was so much rain falling that it covered everything.
“God must be very upset with us then”, I replied completely serious and lost in thought. If rain was truly Gods tears then we must be doing a lot of bad things. I kept going, “You know, lets try to make God happy, lets be good and see if it will rain less!”
-“Yes, we definitely should!  I wonder if it will work, even though there are so many people everywhere, but we can still try”, said Kerri.
Another thought caught me.  There are so many people in this world.  And it must rain everywhere like it did here.  It upset me that we were making God so sad.  That evening, I caught a rain drop in my palm and vowed to always remember that rain is Gods tears.

Only when I became older did I realize that even tears – be it rain gave us humans many blessings.  Even when God cries, his tears benefit us….but being young and little and lost in the rain, I couldn’t  help but also feel thankful for such tears in which we could all play.