When I was a little girl, I was afraid of thunder storms.
I guess I never did outgrow them. At one time I thought I did. I remember standing outside on a second story open air porch watching lightening streak across the sky.
I remember too, my first husband rescuing the babies clothes from the clothesline during one particular storm. I watched in horror from the upstairs window as bolts of lightening shot up from the ground, while he plucked the clothes off the old cotton rope suspended in air by old rusting metal pipes burried in the yard. I am quite sure I saw his hair stand straight up as he danced around them bolts.
When I was much younger, early grade school, I can remember looking out the windows instead of paying attention to my teacher and thinking... another rainy day. The windows were quite tall and had to be open and closed with a long pole with a hook on it's end. They were covered in old green shades from earlier times of the 2nd World War. Even back in the early sixties we were taught to hide under our desks in mock air drills should Russia drop a bomb on us. That never happened, though the teacher did pull the shades whenever the storms became severe.
I remember my mother telling us if the sky should turn an eerie green, and tree and branches should begin to bend, winds blowing, to find the lowest place to lie down even if we had no choice but to lie in the street gutter. I hated the thought of walking home from school in the midst of a storm. I never knew exactly if I would be able to trust my instincts as to the storms intentions.
Mom also told us all that rolling thunder was God playing ten pin. Really...did anyone ever believe there was a bowling alley in the heavens? Of course she also told us on heavy rainy days that the angels were crying. Somewhere here down on earth there must have been someone truly special that the angels all weeped for. I wondered who that was..I did not think they were weeping for joy, no joyful rains were soft rains we call sunshowers.
Now.. there are two exceptions I find comforting brought about by storms. The first- is a rainbow.
The second- Rays of light streaming through the clouds. Mother always said "they were ladders to heaven."
Jackie Summers
copyright 2012
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| photo, courtesy of google |
