Nobody ever said rain hurts. It does.

Parts of the sky were blue. A beautiful mass of color appeared against the darkest part of the sky and arched over the town. I asked Grampa. He said it was a rainbow. He seemed angry, a little sad. I’d never heard of such a thing. So much about rain I’d heard, but not this. So I cried. And then an explosion came from the hill. I screamed. Grampa picked me up and held me. I was so scared, more horrified when I noticed I had peed myself, the back of my jumper all wet, me screaming and crying, holding on to Grampa. His soft laughter was more comforting than mocking. I pulled away and saw his blue eyes happy and watery. He put me down and turned away to wipe his face, didn’t say a word about my pee. That was thunder, he told me. That noise. A lot of power. It comes from lightning. I don’t know what lightning comes from. At night it lights up the whole sky and inside your house if the curtains are open. You never know when or where. And the rainbow, you don’t see those at night, but they might be there. I don’t know.

I thought that was all the rain we going to have. I didn’t see why all the fuss. I heard noises I had never heard: hissing, hissing, hissing, everything hissing. Trickling and gurgling were two words I’d never heard. Grampa taught me those two words when he described the sound rain made after the drops crowded together on a surface so it could keep going to a lower place. All of these noises and sounds happening at the same time sounded like some kind of music. It reminded me of some of the music I had been hearing my whole life. Now I knew what those sounds meant. But this was so much more, much fuller, overpowering. More rain came down. Grampa and I walked down the road toward home.

You couldn’t see where the sky touched the ground. You couldn’t see anything but the rain. The drops were big as my eyeballs for a few seconds. They stung my arms and face and the tops of my bare feet. I kept facing the ground so my hair would absorb the pounding. I looked up at Grampa and he didn’t seem to care. He stood with his face up and his arms out. He was trying to take it all in like the plants and the trees. So I tried it too. It hurt. I couldn’t do it. I thought he was crazy. I begged him not to do it. He acted like I wasn’t even there. I crouched up against him while he stood like a tree. Nobody told me rain hurts. It does.