I’m a summer person and I see autumn, not as the introduction to winter, but the cessation of another summer. I know it’s not a discontinuation of the time I love so much--and I know that another summer will come—but, for me, it’s a sad one, just the same.
I am standing here today, gazing out over our wind-swept lake through a cold and persistent rain. Yesterday we put the pontoon away and now the dock looks bare and useless. It begs to come out of the cold water, too. The big ash tree by the water’s edge--that shaded the beach all summer--has lost all of its foliage, and its leaves now litter the yard and the lake, while the tree stands skeletal and naked, almost embarrassed. The lily pads by the dock are all ragged, pale and sick-looking from summer storms and gnawing insects, trying their best to still stay afloat. A yellow rope tied to the dock that once was used to secure a paddleboat, now floats in the water, intertwined with dead seaweed and a few snails. A forgotten, faded-yellow plastic pail sits on the beach, half-buried in the cold wet sand. Its matching shovel, once intertwined with a grandchild’s pudgy fingers, now stands, half in and half out of the water like a lonely sentinel.
From across the lake, but far out of sight, a shotgun echoes; the hunt has begun. The water fowl, that swam by the dock so many times this past summer, are due to be harvested like the fruits of the garden, for the purpose God intended them to be. Most of the cabins and homes are shuttered and empty. The squeals of small children playing and adults laughing have vanished with the summer warmth but, if you listen closely, you can still hear them echoing through the annals of time. The aroma of outdoor grills cooking delicious meats has been replaced with the smoky fragrance of burning leaves, wood-filled stoves, and fireplaces. Back yards that were summer ball fields are now a collection of blue and green tarps sheltering all of the now-parked toys of summer.
With their bushy canopies stripped, the trees and bushes that sheltered the dark woods from sight this summer now offer a new glimpse into what had laid hidden from our eyes in their depths all summer long. Long-forgotten rotting logs, tree limbs and leaves litter the forest floor. Their decomposing bodies returning to the ground from which they came, in a never-ending cycle of life. Unlike mankind, the flora seems to accept their wintry fate as a time to rest and rejuvenate. Time is not an issue for them; they live and die in the moment, somehow knowing they will be reincarnated to do it all over again next year. As for the birds and animals, it’s a time to think of shelter. Either they go where they can survive or they burrow into mother earth and sleep away the winter.
For me at least, there is a loosely held correlation between the seasons and our own fragile lives and especially this year with the loss of my wife. I remember words from a song by Johnny Mercer that whisper through my mind each and every autumn day as I watch the colors. They go like this, “The falling leaves drift by my window--The falling leaves of red and gold--I see your lips, the summer kisses--The sunburned hands I used to hold.”
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