TheBanyanTree: The Fall

[jodeneperrin at comcast.net]

It can be as stimulating as a cup of dark espresso,   with it’s football games and burning leaves and promise
of holiday excitement.    The lazy days of summer have passed and the world is alive again in blazing gold
and orange.    There is a softness to the light as our hemisphere tilts away from the sun.    Time to reflect and make new plans,  set new goals,  decide things,  come alive.  

It also can be hauntingly melancholy,  leaving a longing for that which was unfulfilled and a sadness of time
that has been lost.    The Fall.  I hear that other English speaking peoples never refer to the season between September and December as anything but Autumn, but I think we Americans got this one right.   Webster defines the generic word,  fall,  as a collapse,  a downfall,  a surrender.  The year,  recognizing it is all over, is going away, falling.   Being born on the very first day of Fall has given me a special connection to this time of year and I feel it in my blood and bones.   This year,  it tortures me,  but I want it to never end.   When it does end,  a new year will come and it will not include my loved one who died this year,  therefore,  he will be farther away.

And he will be harder to remember as time goes by.   The hair on his hands,  golden in the sunlight,  the way his index finger bent at the first knuckle.   The beautiful eyes that could no longer see.  The humor,  the pride and the bravery.   The spirit that just would not quit through all the years of illness and sliding down to the end.    Only when he decided enough was enough  and he simply did not want to stay here any more,  did he quietly slip away.  

My son died this year and I don’t want the year to end,  because I want to remain in a year when he also lived.  I want him to be real,  not just a memory.   I miss him and want him back and I know that  cannot be, so I want to stay as close as possible,  in the same year in which he lived. 


Jodene