Each day as I take my walk down the road that goes by my house, I notice things that have changed from the day before. Maybe it’s an old dead tree that finally succumbed to old age and gave itself back up to the earth. Maybe its something as insignificant as a new row of gopher mounds along side the road or the gathering of geese on the lake before the fall migration. Yes, nothing impacts me like the changing of the seasons, from summer to fall and oh yes-- those falling leaves.
When the words were written to the song “Autumn Leaves” the author most have felt just as I do today. I too equate the deaths of those leaves and the end of summer with a lost love. I too remember her lips, the summer kisses and the sunburned hands I used to hold. Yes, since she went away the days have grown long and I do miss her most of all, when autumn leaves began to fall.
My beloved friend Pat and I talk often about our lost spouses. For both of us this was our first love, the father, or the mother of our children. You don’t erase decades of memories by finding someone else, you just build new memories and when you do they’re not to replace old ones but to add to them. You don’t move on-- you continue on. For you see life goes on without them and although you remember so much of what happened long ago and through the sands of time, you can’t change those memories nor do you want too. Hearts were stilled yes-- but not our hearts.
Each day as the sun sets I think about the finality of it all. What did I do today that I will remember again someday or was it just another wasted moment. So precious is each day, each moment, especially when you think of them in the context that you will never get that moment back again to relive. Oh, how nice it would be if we could go back and right some wrongs or relive some special moments but that’s not the way it works and maybe it’s a lesson in reality for us to get it right the first time.
Today the rains of yesterday have moved on, the clouds have parted and the winds are calm. For at least this day those autumn leaves will stay right where they spent their summer and where we can see them best. There is a goodness in Gods greatness and one only needs to look around to see it. Mark twain once wrote, “God has put something noble and good into every heart his hand created.” My friend Andrea, my neighbor, has shared a picture on face book, she took of Molly and I walking down the road with the leaves of autumn everywhere around us. I have often thought it’s the way I want to be remembered, going forward yes-- but not afraid to look back despite all of the decay around me.
The past doesn’t change no matter how much time you spend thinking about it. Good and bad, happy and sad, they all add up to the efforts of a lifetime and it’s that lifetime that in the end will be the story of your life. Live it, love it, remember it, be proud of it. Now go and enjoy those falling leaves.
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