Rain

The rainy season is here. While some people, like the farmers, usually welcome the rains with relief after a long dry spell, and while we also generally breathe a sigh of thanks for the sudden downpour during a hot summer day, rains can also mean distressing news to many people for whom rain is considered a bane rather than a blessing.

For children, rains simply mean that they won’t be able to go out and play and are content, like my granddaughter Nicole, with just reciting the old nursery rhyme:

“Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
Little children want to play.”

In the old days of my childhood, however, we went out and played in the rain! Or if that were not possible, for some reason or another, we reluctantly stayed inside, made paper boats out of old newspapers or used sheets of paper from school, and raced them in rain-filled canals beside our house. Today, staying inside the house due to the rains is no longer unbearable for children due to the coming of computer games, TV, and the internet.

We are all too familiar with the worries and anxieties of people planning parties outdoors, such as a garden wedding, that it not be rained out. Thus emerged the ritual here in the Philippines of offering something (usually eggs) at the St. Claire Sisters’ monastery for the nuns to pray for a “dry” celebration of the event.

There is the well-planned parade or any outside gathering, that could result into a big let down for organizers should the rains come down on it! Thus, the famous American expression: “Don’t rain on my parade!”

And in the States where the game of baseball is played outdoors during the Summer and into early Fall, an important game is considered a disaster of great magnitude should it be rained out. A rained out game has given birth to the American expression: “taking a rain check”.

Personality experts tell us that, like the Winter season, rain especially when it goes non-stop for days, can cause depression and loneliness on some people.

As I sit here while it rains outside, I remember a niece who says that she cries during those grey rainy days when there seems to be no let up, no end in sight. Thinking about her (I dedicate this piece to her) made me recall a poem by Longfellow that I memorized long ago in one of our Humanities class. I think the title is “Rainy Day” and it goes:

“THE day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary.”

I also remember one line from the poem that became the title of a song by Ella Fitzgerald: “Into each life some rain must fall.” Here is that song’s lyrics:

Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine
Into each heart some tears must fall
But some day the sun will shine
Some folks can lose the blues in their hearts
But when I think of you another shower starts
Into each life some rain must fall
But too much is falling in mine

“But some day the sun will shine.” That is the message of hope for everyone that I'd like to end these random notes about rain with. It is also elicited in the last paragraph of Longfellow”s poem:

"Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary."