I walked this morning through an icy rainfall to an appointment across town, wearing my trusty Mernini raincoat. There's something pleasantly smug about thwarting such a rain. It splatters, it dashes and flows, but it cannot dampen you.
As I walked, I remembered my childhood love of rain.
And then, my son's childhood fear of...
the shower!
Like many little ones, he did not see the joy of letting warm water cover his head and face. He'd plaster himself against the tiled wall, which made his getting clean unlikely.
There was no point scolding, and cajoling had failed, when I suddenly remembered a childhood wish of my own:
I had wanted to bring my umbrella into the shower.
I loved umbrella days, you see; the rushing sound of drops above, the feeling of safety beneath. All that was missing, I felt, was warmth. Imagine if rain was as warm as a shower?
So I asked my mother if I could shower with my umbrella. She did not, unsurprisingly, see the glory of this suggestion, and I went without my warm rain experience. But as I watched my little son cringing, I thought, well, why not?
I fetched his small umbrella and wiped it clean. Then I passed it to him in the shower stall, and turned on the warm water. The transformation was immediate. With a grin of delight, he stood beneath the spray, safe and protected from the dreaded wet head.
At first, I feared he'd stay dry and grubby forever. But gradually he began to experiment, tipping the umbrella this way and that. Since he could control the water, he no longer feared it. Two showers later, his hair got damp. Four showers later, he left the umbrella folded up against the shower wall, just in case.
And once, after he'd gone to bed, I tried a shower with his umbrella. Cozy in the steam, the warm drops resounding above me, I smiled for that little girl I once was.
