Waking to the Patter of Rain

I woke this morning to the patter of rain against my house and a cool cross-breeze pouring in through open windows.  The falling rain, as I first oozed up from my deep sleep, sounded like voices murmuring in another room.  For a few seconds, the muttering sounded exactly like my grandmother talking with my grandfather at the kitchen table as I heard it from my room on the second floor of their house forty-some years ago.

Rain, after a long dry spell, renews the world.   Rain makes the old new again.

My grandparents took me in when I reached the age of twelve and raised me as their own.  They saved me.  Waking to what sounded like their voices felt…wonderful.  As I budded into my full senses, the small drumming of raindrops became merely rain and my grandparents dissolved back into the past.

Rain is what we need.

Wildfires have been creeping in around Montana and more recently through the foothills and mountains around our sun-filled valley.

Only rain can save us.

After fully coming to my senses, I climbed from my bedding and stood at an open window.   The cool, damp air smoothed across my skin.  I could smell sage and pine and damp stone.  I closed my eyes and listened as a steady rain continued softening the hard world around me.

--Mitchell Hegman