The morning was shrouded in a thick life-less gray and rain beat on everything and everyone. The asphalt streets appeared to be patent leather edged in water streams rushing towards the nearest sewer. No lightning or thunder was seen or heard; just rain everywhere on everyone outside.
A mother was frantically getting her four-year-old son dressed for preschool. The weather necessitated an additional layer of the raincoat, boots, and an umbrella—more demands on the already frenzied morning schedule. In the process, she mumbled about the wetness, the dreariness, the pewter-hued day. The very weight of the wetness seems to add to the mound of demands of her life at home, at work, with friends, finances, and plans. The list of demands that needed her attention were shaped into sound bites. The mother was not talking to the child per say; she was voicing her complaints to the only other human in the room. But she really was not talking to him in the room. She fussed at the rain and its glooms. She was sick of it. Enough was enough! The mother kept right on buttoning the shirt of the toddler. Then her name, “Mommy” interrupted her thoughts and monologue. “Mommy.” Her consciousness cleared and she found herself looking into a pair of large dark brown eyes hooded with thick black lashes. She was on her knees and those eyes looked his mom squarely in the face, eye to eye. He smiled wisely and said with the confidence of the innocent, “Mommy, Mr. Williams (his pre-school teacher) said rain is liquid sunshine.”
For a moment she was stunned; she felt convicted. Here she was dripping complaints upon her child. She was teaching him an unnecessary negative. His small but confident voice broke through her sullen self-imposed dark clouds. In that instance, a shift occurred. Roles changed. The toddler became the teacher. Her little boy gave her the understanding of what her attitude needed to be during rainy days. Thereafter, they would walk in the rain. During inclement weather days, they would don their raincoats, boots, and umbrellas and walk hand in hand in the rain. Other folk dashed for doorways and awning shelter but these two walked contentedly in the downpour. The woman never complained about rain again.
The son is now grown but the woman never forgot the lesson he taught her as a toddler on that pewter-colored morning. Rain is just liquid sunshine. Rain is just liquid sunshine; problems are just learning opportunities for our growth.
Reflections
Can you give yourself space to listen to your children whatever their ages? What can you learn from them?
Life is sometimes a flood of problems and complaint gushes from us in action and word. Where is your growth (liquid sunshine) in the difficulties?
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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