EVERY TIME IT RAINS

A heavy downpour

As I was writing this piece, there was a heavy downpour.  While watching the raindrops fall and listening to the sound they created, a familiar scene suddenly flashed across my mind bringing back some poignant memories. 

In my teens, someone gave me a card where the lyrics of the song "I'll Be Back" by The Beatles were printed. As though making a promise, he wrote at the back of the card an excerpt  from a poem written by Angela Manalang Gloria. And it went like this: 

"You shall not forget

For I am past forgetting

I shall come to you again

With the starlight

And the scent of wild champakas

And the melody of rain." 

Such a very eloquent and deeply moving piece of poetry! 

He was the guy I used to call my best friend. That was when he was still his old authentic self -- kind, humble, refined, timid, soft-spoken, very thoughtful! We had many things and traits in common. I'd say, apart from my mother's unconditional love, his friendship was the best thing that ever happened to me. 

True enough, whenever it rained, he had always come back. Equipped with an umbrella, he would come and ask me to roam around with him. And, despite the weather, it was a most exhilarating experience. Because he made me feel wanted... and needed. He made me feel so very important. 

Sadly, though, with the passing of days (and years), my friend radically changed. The change in his economic status likewise changed his character and the way he dealt with me. 

Even though he's no longer around now, and as if to fulfill the old promise he made, every time it rains, he always comes back. 

But only in my memory.