The Rain Touches Everything

This morning we walk to school hand in hand sheltered by umbrellas. Do you smell the rain? she asks. I do, I say. I have always loved the smell of rain. I look back at her as if she’s read my mind or if she’s playing a trick on me because I have always wanted a daughter who asks me: Do you smell the rain? It smells… she breathes in, perfect, she says. 

Yesterday we sowed gladiolus and morning glory seeds into the soil. I tell my girls to place two or three in the same spot in case one of them doesn’t make it. I don’t know if anyone’s taught me that or if it’s just something I believe because I carried three daughters in my womb, but only two of them are here with me now. 

It is April in Toronto where we have lived for four years, and every shifting season still feels drastic compared to Hong Kong. Like this morning, last month’s falling snow has now turned into falling rain.   

The afternoon sun dissolves the clouds and heats the air. Back at school I run into my friend’s husband. How’s Ruby? I ask. Good, he says and pauses for a moment. How many weeks now? I ask, remembering the winter and her cumbersome belly getting in and out of the car, remembering she was due sometime in spring. 

Winston’s speech and steps stammer. He begins by asking if I knew and ends with saying that they had lost the baby. I grab his arm and search his eyes for all the pain I once knew. I’m so sorry, I say. And we continue on, back and forth, passing the heartache of losing the baby you almost had. 

He shows me a photo of their son on his phone in what is usually a moment to revel in the miracle of life. Only now we are staring at the mysteries of fate. Tomorrow, Ruby will tell me his name was Ocean. 

After an event I return home to a sleeping four-year-old in my bed with wispy hairs stuck to her forehead and a squished cheek against the bedsheet. I stroke the hairs away and kiss her face. She breathes in deeply at the disruption before returning to her slumber and I remember this, this bliss of watching your baby sleep. Each inhale a miracle and every exhale a relief, something I yearned for years after our unborn daughter never drew her first breath. It is at this time of night when our thoughts are secret, sacred. It is at this time of night when we send prayers of thanksgiving or anguish into the sky.

Thunder rumbles and I awake, sometimes not knowing which side of death I’m on but tonight there’s a sleeping child next to me. And not the empty crib I once knew. 

Tomorrow begins with rain again and the seeds we have sown are flooded with water. Is it too much water for the seeds? asks my rain-smelling child. It probably isn’t but I don’t know. I don’t know which way it will go. Because I don’t know why some babies get to grow and others don’t. I don’t know why some prayers get answered and others don’t.  

Sometimes the only thing I can be sure of is the rain, how it touches everything and spares no one. How it is a part of life and therefore a part of death. How before, I lost a daughter but now have two. How before, I never knew it could be like this—walking, holding hands under umbrellas as she breathes in and marvels at the smell of the rain. So who am I to say, how am I to know which seeds will make it, and which won’t?