It was a summer day with a menacing sky that threatened severe thunder storms. I’d been running errands all day and had hoped to make it back home before the rain, but lines at the post office and grocery store were longer than usual, and the tourist traffic in my small mountain town was bumper to bumper.

Dropping by the public library was the last thing on my “to do” list. I was tempted to put it off, but the books that I wanted had been on reserve for more than a week.

Just as I was ready to exit the library with my books in hand, a loud clap of thunder shook the windows and the power went out. Lightning and thunder seemed to compete with the furious wind, swaying the electric and telephone wires. Trees waved their branches back and forth in the air. I decided to sit in the lobby to wait out the storm. In the darkness, the library had become quieter than usual, with librarians speaking in hushed tones and stamping books.

Suddenly, I thought of the sheets I’d left hanging out on the clothesline. They would be soaking wet when I got home. Having a clothesline took me back to long, hot nostalgic childhood summers when my grandmother and I would hang the laundry in her backyard, very early in the morning, and then rush out to quickly bring them inside at the first sign of an afternoon storm. Although my grandmother had passed, I still thought of her almost everyday and missed her. — Beliefnet.com