Happy Rain

Rain! It's different in every place in the world. It can be laughing, it can be crying, or it can tell stories.

It was summer 1991 in Syktyvkar, Russia. I had just passed several difficult exams to enter the university and was in seventh heaven from happiness. Suddenly, there was a bell. A woman with a steel face was at the door. She gave my family a telegram: "Grandmother is dying." For a minute I couldn't understand the words and slowly felt a heavy lump in my throat beginning to choke me.

My grandmother, Antonina, who lived in the Caucasus in the south of Russia, never missed a day without telling us a story. In her room she would gather my little sister, Tonechka, and me around some roses that she grew and would tell us stories. It was like being in a fairy tale. We would sit quietly, spelled by her soft and tender smile and listen to her enchanting voice. It always rains in the Caucasus.

Every time we gathered together to listen to my grandmother's stories, it rained. Even now I remember that feeling of great joy inside me. Rain was knocking at the window, jumping on the metal roof, and playing on our children's swing. My grandmother would tell us how a prince had saved his beloved princess, how a frog, cursed by an evil sister, became again a beautiful princess named Vasilisa (because Ivan fell in love with her while she was a frog); how rabbits gave a lesson to a wolf so that he never again wanted to harm them; how a Snow Queen stole a little boy, and his brave sister overcame all obstacles and saved him. Every time my grandmother would ask us, "Do you hear the rain laughing?" We would nod our heads and gaze at the mysterious rain behind the window, who was really laughing with us because a fairy tale had had a happy ending.

At other times, when my sister and I would quarrel over a cat or doll, my grandmother would tell us a story. She told us how a bear stole a little girl named Marsha because she quarreled with her brothers and sisters. The bear let her go only when she changed her attitude towards her family. My grandmother would ask us, "Do you see the rain crying?" Big drops like tears flew down on the window. We were ashamed.

With time, rain became our friend. Every time my sister and I were ready to argue about something, we remembered the rain crying, and we didn't want our friend to cry.

Often my whole family would go early in the morning to the mountains. It was more than beautiful. Huge, strong waterfalls were throwing their rapid waters down to the stony river. Mountains surrounded everything as well as the peaceful green valleys. Foliage covered the mountain's base but its top was eternally blanketed with ice. Snow and ice sparkled in the sun and changed to millions of colors. Light rain sprinkled and a rainbow hugged half of the earth. My grandmother told us about the stateliness of nature, and I saw its magnificence.

Rain itself told us beautiful stories about the universe. We saw the mighty power of our Creator.

My sister and I were growing. We were living in the north of Russia where, when it rains, the water turns into snowflakes. As teenagers we still remembered our friend the rain and my grandmother's stories. We visited our grandfather and grandmother every summer in the Caucasus.

My grandmother had a stroke when I was eight years old and became paralyzed on the left side, but she didn't change. She couldn't walk without her chair and she could hardly speak, but every time we came in the summer to visit her she gathered my sister and me near those roses in her room and told us happy fairy tales and stories of her life. Rain was knocking at the window, dancing on the roof, and playing on our old children's swing. Soon the wind of stories, on its wings, carried us away to childhood.

That year, when the time came for us to leave for home, my grandmother, smiling with tears in her eyes, told us, "I'll see you next summer...."

The words of the telegram "Grandmother is dying" echoed in my mind. I saw my mother crying and packing a small bag to fly to the Caucasus. I saw my father, pale, with tears in his eyes, biting his lips. I saw the shivering shoulders of my sister. I heard rain knocking at our windows.

We ran to the airport. It was that time of year when nobody could buy plane tickets. People were standing in long lines. After standing in the line for six hours we managed to buy only one ticket. My father flew to his dying mother. My mother spent the whole night in the line at the airport and the next morning she could buy only two tickets. She sent my sister and me to Moscow and said to wait for her. She couldn't buy any more tickets, so she ran secretly to the field where the planes were and asked a pilot to take her in his cabin. Then from Moscow we flew to the Caucasus. Far from the earth, in the clouds, it rained. Through tears I looked out a small round window and saw the rain crying.

We were three hours late. My grandmother died. Until the last minute I didn't believe she would die. I begged God to let her live. I cried and prayed.

In her room there were dying roses, and the rain sang a sad song while knocking on the window, the roof, and our swing.

Several years have passed and I often think of my grandmother. Sometimes, looking at the rain, I cry. But I really believe that one day I will see her. She will tell me a story and happy rain will dance behind the windows.