Thunder in the Night

A delivery truck on a cross street. A plane climbing to cruising altitude. The rumble tumbles through my bedroom windows, comforting enough to lull me to sleep.

Then light flickers through a slit in the closed blinds, and one of Thor’s bowling balls knocks a #10 pin into the dark with a growl, and I know I am in for another midnight thunderstorm.

Last week there were three of them in a row. The rumbles would give way to flickers and growls and then to flashing strikes and booming claps that seem to shake the house.

One of the things I missed most in Seattle was Midwestern thunderstorms. We did have occasional thunder, and sometimes a startling clap or three, but they were as rare as snowfalls.

Now, I get both of them.

Lulled by the rumbles, shaken awake by the crack and boom, I am always sung back to sleep by the steady rainfall, that arrives like a blessing.

There are times when missing my Seattle home and friends strikes like a knife to the heart. But sleeping after thunder in the night and waking to a red bird in a redbud tree make the pain at least bearable. Sometimes almost worth it.