The night before the rain, the stars can't be seen clearly in the sky and the moon would be blocked now and then by of cloud. Before a rain, the air seem to become heavier and smell differently. When I can feel sudden gusts of cold wind blowing in the air, I know the rain would come within minutes. Sometimes the dark clouds in the sky can be an indicator of a rain, but they are the strong winds that actually the harbinger of the rain. When the first few drops of water fall on the ground, they seem to be the heaviest. There would be a sizzling sound when the drops hit and are quickly absorbed into the hot ground, just like the sound of a vegetable oil poured on a half-dry . Water expurgates the air trapped in tiny captivities in the ground. My mom used to say that don't inhale the air at the beginning of a downpour because toxic gases kept for a long time in the ground may be released into the space. I don't know whether she's right, but the air indeed smells different, a bit like the smell of crunched grass.

I like the rain. The surrounding suddenly make me feel like I'm at home.

The rain season ...

My father fetched me to school until I entered secondary school. During the rainy season, he would drive his motorbike all the way to the hall way of my primary school so I did not even have to walk out of the sheltered areas. He was the only parent who did that. I would hide under his big "bat raincoat" (a large rain coat that has an extruded tail with which the person sitting at the back seat on the motorbike can hide under). The tail of the raincoat is so big that I could not see much of the surrounding. But I had remembered the way home so well that I could tell where we were along the road from the limited view of the road and pavement along the way. It was like a game to me - hid under the rain coat, held on to my father's back with my eyes closed, and just felt the slight tilting of the motorbike to count the number of turns we had taken. The best part was when we rode up the slope leading to our home. I felt the motorbike slowed down the motorbike to change the gear, the hump when the motorbike hit the foot of the slope and the slight vibration of the engine when it climbed up the slope. And we're home.

When ...

I started looking at the weather more carefully and tried to predict the rain some time when I first started secondary school in Vietnam. She always has a headache prior to a change of the weather - a severe headache a few days before a storm comes, and mild headache every now and then before a small rain comes. At first we thought it's just because she's a bit too sensitive since a lot of people experience the same. But when I first started secondary school, sometimes my mother would have a black out and faint. The doctors don't know what happens to her. But since the first day when she suddenly fainted while swirling a cup of milk for me for breakfast, I started looking at the sky more carefully. I try to predict whether my mom has a headache because of a coming rain. I would tell her when I massage her head "Mom, I think it's going to rain" - I intend to reassure her, but indeed, it's more about reassuring myself.

I always want to travel home for holiday, but sometimes fearful thoughts would creep into my mind. I'm afraid to know if someone is no longer there when I come home. In fact, it happens a few times during my four years in Singapore. And the worst thought is whether my mom had ever fainted again; my parents always seem to hide such occasions from me whenever I ask.

To live in a different country, I started to learn to love things that I used to take for granted.

Sometimes that love does not always comprise of happy feelings. There might be loss at first, but eventually, that teaches me to appreciate many things which I used to take for granted.