Rainy Days

What a pleasure to see the rain. I know that most people complain and I am lucky in that I don’t have to go out in it today, but never the less I would still welcome the rain. There are many ways of looking at it but first there’s the garden… you might say that yes it waters the garden and it does it rather well. But to me I can also say it has saved me a job, today I can’t get out in the garden because it is raining so I can do what I want to do indoors without feeling guilty. Bonus!
I didn’t waste my day, some time ago my mother gave me a pile of photocopied photographs dated back to the 1800s. I love old photos and these were extra special because every picture has a relative of mine looking back at me. In my web pages there will be lots of stories, still under construction yet, that are quite heart breaking in places and to look at photographs and see the faces of those people is very strange. There are faces that look familiar yet don’t have a name as yet and others that I know a lot about that don’t have a face. Today while I was escaping the rain I copied all those photographs, learned faces to put to names and, the saddest of all, I typed up a newspaper report of my great grandfather’s suicide at 37.
There are other stories that have been passed down surrounding that report but back in those days, 1928, everything was so loosely taken care of. The family decided whether they wanted an autopsy, nothing was forensically tested and the verdict was based on circumstantial evidence only. Cause of death – death by drowning while temporarily insane. I will be telling the story on the website pages but it sure makes you think how lucky we are today. The truth will out, nobody today would blame a trip to the dentist and it would be broadcast all over the newspapers if any other circumstances were suspected. I believe there was a lot more to the story.
So today I was grateful for the rain, and maybe it was rather appropriate that I wrote about something sad. Had it not rained the report would still be sitting on my shelf, the faces both stern and austere or smiling and content would just remain unknown to me and stuffed in a plastic bag, and I wouldn’t have had another opportunity to talk to my mother and discover even more secrets.
The rain is a blessing in so many ways but roll on sunshine on Friday!