Summer Nights of the Past

Mom had already gotten up, with basins, pots, and buckets to catch the water flowing down from the tin roof. It was summer, but the rain was sudden. In the room, Dad also got up to help Mom cover it. The room was covered with an old cloth that had also started to get wet from the rain. I don’t know how many times like that, how many sudden summer rains it appeared in my own memories.

The children huddled together in a corner of the house to avoid the rain. Mom brought out a thin blanket to cover me and my siblings. Mom wrapped herself in a scarf: Let's go to sleep! That's how we survived, thanks to the diligence of Mom and Dad, taking care of all the children. During the rainy days, Mom couldn't make any money selling anything but boiled vegetables and used the water to make soup.

The brothers and sisters always wanted to grow up quickly, not knowing why. They just wanted to grow up quickly to help their mother catch the water flowing down from the small roof. Those were the summers with sudden midnight rains. Sudden, becoming memories imprinted in the subconscious. When we grow up, everything has to change with time. The old house no longer has to be crooked after rainy nights, making us wake up startled. But, every summer there are always rains, low pressure, storms offshore. It makes people nostalgic, remembering the times when their mother woke up and grabbed a thin blanket to cover them. Their father closed the doors to prevent rain from splashing into the fragile reed house before each night rain. The cement floor was flooded with water, the brothers and sisters squatted on their mother's rickety bed.

It's funny, when people grow up as they wish, they want to return to their childhood, huddled in a fragile house. They want to see their mother covered with a blanket to keep warm. The once mottled cement floor has also become a thing of the past. They want to find the feeling of the past, the sudden summer rainy nights that come and go in their childhood memories. The long, lingering rains, their mother soaked in her Ao Ba Ba shirt by the fish stall, desolate because of the lack of sales.

Someone, when grown up, may forget many childhood memories. But just by accident, something we encounter will touch many dark corners in the clumsy memories of that time. Longing to wake up in the middle of the night to be covered with an old blanket that still has the smell of the past. Longing to reach out and catch the raindrops falling on the floor. Longing for the warmth of our parents, of those difficult days in the rain.

The sudden summer rain seemed to touch everyone's past.

Source