The June 11, 2005 Delightful Romantic
Rain that almost Turned Tragic (written on June 12, 2005)
As you probably
know, it has been exceptionally hot and
dry so far this
June. While it has been terribly humid no rain has fallen the
last
three weeks onto the “magic” soils of Magicland. Well, this
Saturday we decided to go to 5 PM Mass at St. Josephs in White
Cloud. We faithfully try to attend Mass every weekend but we go
to
different masses and even different Catholic Churches (mostly St.
Joseph, All Saints in Fremont and St. Barts in Newaygo). Well,
after Mass a St. Joe parishioner mentioned to Annemarie about her
seeing us
working on
the farm everytime she went by. Then Annemarie turned to her and
said “We really need the rain”, just as Annemarie turned to respond,
she noticed dark clouds to the east, it was bright and sunny when
we arrived. Looking further we noticed some clouds to the south.
.(Magicland is about 7 miles south-southwest of White Cloud.) As
we drove home, we noticed more and thicker clouds to the south—any type
of clouds have been unusual this June. We also noticed
lightning. We stopped at
the farm stand to shut off the water and
to take home the last two quarts of strawberries. About 1-1/2 miles
from
our home it started to rain. A second later it
started to pour.
The drive down our wooded
driveway was just beautiful; lush
mist,
created by the pouring rain,
was everywhere and the once rain-starved
foliage
was obviously delighted as it soaked up the long awaited
moisture. Except for the pouring
rain, everything was still –
no wind. The foliage looked
unusually lush with the
atmosphere itself radiating a greenish
tinge
—the movie “George Washington Slept Here” with Jack
Benny came to mind
with that famous summer storm
shot. It was beautiful and
gave one
a wonderful a cozy romantic feeling. Well anyway, we drove into
the
garage and I quickly got out of the Suburban and ran inside the
house-trying to dodge golf ball sized raindrops and shut some
windows. Three of the children followed me. Annemarie, Matt
and Catherine waited at the garage. After a moment or
two of
pouring rain, Matt asked
Annemarie if they should go. Annemarie
said NO! A second later
a tree limb fell right where they
were to
leave the garage! The limb
was about 6 inches in diameter
and
very, very heavy. If it hit somebody…well let’s not think
of
that! After the incident,
I asked Annemarie about her
refusal to
leave the cover of the garage just then and she
angels, no
doubt,
had
something to do with
Annemarie’s “feeling”.
The other good
thing
was the rain… we received about 2/3rd inch from that storm.
Another similar storm came around an hour later with more of that
God-sent
rain. By the way, this isn’t the first time we received an
unexpected
rain, when we desperately needed it just as we were returning from
Mass.
It seems like this happens much more often than chance would
expect.