On Seeing the Rain

On Seeing the Rain


I met him at a gas station in Cross Keys, close to where my great-grandparents live. We had both driven there separately from where we worked, about an hour away. It was a particularly hot day in the summer, but I didn’t turn on the air conditioning in my car, choosing to roll down my windows and turn my radio up louder instead.

I felt like his little sister, tagging along with him to see the horses, cats, and dogs, while he fed them. When was the last time I had been on a farm? I couldn’t remember. I would be content, though, to follow him around and see the animals, and talk to them.

He and I were both dressed in work clothes, still—greasy shirts and jeans, and filthy steel toed shoes to top the ensemble off. Once we arrived at the farm and got the mail, we walked up to the picturesque house that belonged to his sister and brother-in-law and went in. I was afraid to walk on the carpet, or sit on the couches—everything looked so clean, and here we were, a couple of soggy messes. He didn’t mind, however, and since it was indeed his sister’s house, I trusted that he knew what was ok and what was not.

We sat inside for a bit because it was air conditioned, tired and hot—the day at work had been long, and so had the drive over.

As we sat on the couch in the living room, we could look straight ahead out of the big picture window and see the farm, past the farm, the fields, past the fields, the sky.

We walked outside, then, onto the small wooden porch. The sky was turning gray in the distance, and I could feel all around me that rain was on its way. But he could do more than just feel it; he could see it, too.

I couldn’t. The sky was a watercolor of different shades of gray and blue, and that was all that I saw. He asked me if I saw it.

“Do you see it? Do you see the rain?’

“No,” I said slowly, feeling very young and silly. “I don’t. How can you see the rain?”

We stood there on the wooden porch steps, he behind me, a tall and thin, but commanding, presence. He put his large hand on my right shoulder, leaned down to my height, and pointed.

“Look over there, near that big tree. The big one to the right of those two other ones . . . See how the clouds are different?”

It took me a moment, still adjusting to the mugginess and heat outside; and also to the odd presence of his hand on my shoulder. But I did see that the clouds were different. It looked like someone had taken a paintbrush to the sky and pulled the wet paint downwards. Something that I could see Bob Ross doing on TV.

“Yes, now I see.”
He was always showing me things; things at work, like practicality—how to make my job easier; things that he has learned on his countless adventures all over and around; and things that he probably made up as well, although I would never know the difference. I would mostly trust him no matter what, because he seemed so sure and certain of things—even the most everyday things, like rain falling miles away in the distance.