Nature, the Gentlest Mother

Let the rain kiss you.  Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops.  Let the rain sing you a lullaby. --Langston Hughes


I was preparing the dinner plates last night when I first heard it...that unmistakable rumble of thunder.  I stopped for a moment to listen. Could it be?  Yes, there it was. I heard it again;it wasn't my imagination.  I had actually heard the rumbling of thunder.  Now, you are probably saying, "Well, it is summer.  What does she expect?"  You're right.  Any other summer this would have been just like any other storm....but this was actually  the first thunder I had heard this entire summer.

It has been such a hot, dry summer.  I can only imagine how much worse it might have been if we had not had such a snowy winter and rainy spring. I'm sure we probably would have had drought conditions. I've missed the sound of the rain beating against my window, the sight of the sky lighting up in a show far more amazing than any of our man-made fireworks....I've missed those breathtaking views that ARE Mother Nature at her wildest. Now, the winds were beginning to pick up as I stopped what I was do to stand just inside of the back and watch, waiting for the rain to become a downpour, but, alas, it never did....never more than a trickle.  My cat, who after 19 years of storms, remains fearful of the thunder...and hightailed it under the bed where she will stay until it is over.  I feel bad for her, but there is not much I can do.  This is out of my hands.  This is Mother Nature's way.  Her power and energy amazes me.

A deep rumble now...and suddenly I am reminded that I am not truly safe from it for it could turn on me in a second...I am not afraid,  but this storm has brought back one of my more pleasant memories of my childhood. I remember it clearly.  I was playing on the living room floor with my paper dolls, and mom was puttering about the house...one of the very few evenings that she stayed home.  Suddenly, a storm blew up from seemingly nowhere; the winds were howling, the rain was coming down in torrents, and the sky was lighting up in quite a majestic show.  All was okay until I saw the bolt of lightning come into the window and strike our lamp.  Mom quickly snatched me up, and we raced out to the car; we drove around for what seemed like hours because mom said that 'the safest place to be is in a moving car.'  It has something to do with the rubber tires. 

That night was one of the few times that I can ever remember feeling really close to and comforted by my mother.  I will  treasure that memory forever...for on that one special night, during that one special storm, mom let her guard down and became a mother.

Yes, we were mother and daughter on that night...that night so long, long ago...Mothers love their children, and children love their mothers, but sometimes we just don't know how to show it. Sometimes we need that little push to show that we truly do care for each other. That was Mother Nature's special gift to me...a sense of comfort and a feeling of overwhelming joy for a lonely child who had never felt she was loved....a lifetime memory...a memory of love...from Mother Nature, the gentlest of all mothers.

Nature, the Gentlest Mother

                   Nature, the gentlest mother,

Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest, --
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon, --
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.

--Emily Dickenson --

What was one gift of Mother Nature that will follow you through your lifetime?