Summer nights of the past

My mother had already gotten up, with basins, pots, and buckets to catch the rainwater dripping down the corrugated iron roof. It was summer, but the rain was so sudden. In the room, my father also got up to help my mother cover the windows. The room, covered with an old piece of cloth, was already getting wet from the rain. I don't know how many times this happened, how many sudden summer rains it brought to life in my own memories.

My siblings and I huddled together in a corner of the house, avoiding the leaks. Mom brought out a thin blanket and covered me and my younger siblings. She wrapped a scarf around herself: "Go to sleep!" That's how we survived, thanks to the diligence of our parents, who cared for their entire family. On rainy days, Mom couldn't sell anything; she had nothing but bundles of boiled vegetables, using the water for soup.

My siblings and I just wanted to grow up quickly, not knowing why. We only wished to grow up fast to help Mom catch the streams that flowed down the small roof. Those were summers with sudden, midnight rains. Sudden, they became memories etched in our subconscious. As we grow up, everything changes with time. The old house no longer creaks after rainy nights, startling us awake. But every summer brings rain, low pressure systems, and storms offshore. It evokes nostalgia, remembering Mom waking up and grabbing a thin blanket to cover us siblings. Dad would reinforce the doors to prevent rain from splashing into our flimsy thatched house before each night rain. The cement steps were flooded, and we would squat on Mom's rickety bed.

It's strange how, when people grow up according to their own desires, they long to return to their meager childhood, huddled in their fragile, dilapidated homes. They long to see their mother cover them with a blanket to keep them warm. The once-stained cement floor has become a thing of the past. They want to rediscover the feeling of the past, the sudden summer rains that came and went in their childhood memories. The long, drawn-out downpours, their mother soaked in her traditional Vietnamese blouse by the fish stall, the business dreary due to slow sales.

As we grow older, we may forget many childhood memories. But unexpectedly, something we encounter can touch upon many dark corners of those clumsy memories. We long to wake up in the middle of the night to be covered by an old blanket that still retains the scent of the past. We long to reach out and catch the raindrops falling on the floor. We long for the warmth of our parents, of those difficult days in the rain.

The sudden summer rain seemed to touch upon a past that belonged to everyone.

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