There was a time when the rain didn’t just fall—it sang.
I was not more than twelve, and sat at the wooden window of the village house of my grandmother. The roof was tin and each rain drop a low beat of the drum in the still afternoon. I recall her at the fireside, and with a pot of pepper soup. His smell, his heat, the quietness, and it seemed that the world stood still just because we were there.
Sit with me and talk, she said, and patted the mat beside her. Her narrations never ceased dancing between memory and magic- that about her childhood, of her love letters on the old paper and the day she had met my grandfather beside a mango tree. She talked of the past as though it had happened yesterday and I was listening as though the stories were my own.
That was not the day of time. However, as I would come to appreciate later in life time does not stand still.
Years passed. I got tall, busy and the visits to village decreased. Grandmother got more leisurely, more white. and one rainy afternoon I came back; not as a child, but as one who bore the burden of time. The tin roof was hush-a-hush. Cooler it was at home.
She was disappeared.
The memories lived, nevertheless.
The rhythmic sound reminds me every time it rains today. I hear her laughter, smell her cooking and I feel the heat of such a small fire. The drops tell me the stories of her, her words that can only be heard.
It is said that people change as time goes by. That, feelings wear out. However, I have learnt something more.
Emotions do not fade out but change the mode. Laughter of childhood turns into the silent hardness of maturity. It is the loss which turns out to be the beauty of reminding.
At times I question, did she realize the extent to which she influenced me? How an ordinary rainy day turned into a treasure chest, I unlock each time I need to feel a little better?
Memories are not a mere “frozen past” in time. They are our living embodiments of what we are. They change, and then come back, and say more when we would say less.
And such I write. I write to keep in mind. I write so that her voice will not die. I write because life can go on but certain things cannot go on, things like love, things like gratitude.
Thanks for reading my post I'm inviting @josepha, @bela90 and @joymm to participate in this contest.