"Don't be silly, Wendy, we need the rain!" A regular counter from my mother to my childhood grumblings. Summer in the Hudson Valley would often mean ninety degree plus temps, late July-August, and recurrent, short-term droughts. Mom would water her own garden, large at one time, and then go to Knox's Headquarters to maintain the Jane Colden Garden. Either way, she'd don her old cotton, button-down shirt; faded jeans; plain, rubber boots; go forth to conquer the weeds; dead-head the blossoms; stem the woodchuck's (groundhog's) destruction, and spray susceptible flowers with her natural deer deterrent.
When it did rain, her routine altered to adding a light-weight jacket and eschewing the repellent. Once in a while, I'd help, however, my mother had her set routine. She never said it, but I'd slow her down. Relieved, I clung during rain-soaked days to the indoors like a fussy cat. Luckily, we had a dog who knew to stay near the house. One routine I enjoyed would be to dry him off when he'd leap inside, catching him before my Mom yelled, "Get him before he gets on the furniture!"
High-volumed exclamations were frequent in our home. Of all of us, my father's mood would dampen with the rain. I always found it funny, Dad not wanting my mother to yell, as he had much bigger lungs and would use them daily. Unlike, my Mom, he'd usually display his deep baritone to beckon his family for a favor, or, he'd rant and scold face-to-face with an equally high volume. We may have had northern European roots; yet no one, brother included, acted politely when guests weren't around. In fact, Woody Allen could have substituted my parents for his in that memorable scene in Hannah and Her Sisters when he tells his parents he's converting from Judaism to Catholicism. Behind my parents' closed bedroom door would issue boisterous debates, especially during foul weather. Mother and father were the generation before ground-breaker Deborah Tannen's studies on how men and women communicate. Still, my mother rarely let inclement weather depress her.
Years passed. I began to understand my mother, the gardener, and my mother, the rain enthusiast. For when not tending to her gardens, she would tell me how soothing rain's music could be. During gray weekends, I'd sit in the den playing cards with Dad, reading, or watching television. My mother would be elsewhere in the house, often the kitchen. Among Mom's many talents was her singing. Mom loved when my father would play jazz music or old standards on the stereo to which she'd hum or sing. She'd also cook with the radio on and a melody would arise, as rich and sweet as the Baltimore orioles that nested in the fields across our street.
Caught off guard during a downpour or a sprinkle, on the other hand, Mom would curse the rain. Walking along the road to pick wildflowers or returning to the house from her rock garden, she would grab anything she could find: newspapers, a sweater, gardening gloves, or even a library book to protect her permed, tinted hair. We'd protest. She'd reply: "I don't want to get my hair wet!" Dad and I finally talked her out of using those plastic, folded rain hats; she acquiesced with, "They don't work well-enough anyway."
Mother relished hearing the rain at night. Knowing she wouldn't have to water flowers the next day and savoring the way the rainfall music would help her sleep, like a shaman reaching to the skies to thank the gods, she seemed eerily calm. No, not even thunderstorms could shake her. In contrast, as a child thunder and lightning terrified me. I'd run into my parents room to jump up on my Dad's bed. He would soothe me; Mom would explain why I shouldn't be afraid.
Let it be said I loved my parents. When my father died, very quickly and unexpectedly, I sobbed for a week and felt quick to tears during the months that followed. With my mother, the dramas leading to her death evoked quiet teardrops. The day she died I stopped crying. I didn't cry at her memorial, spreading of her ashes. I've rarely cried since. Cold? No, for I remember how much she wanted us to celebrate her life. She lived until ninety-four. Since Mom died, I've aspired to embrace nature's gifts. But when it rains, I sometimes cry inside.
You see, mother loved the rain.
