A New Season

This past week, just in time for the equinox, it suddenly became the epitome of this new season. The sun is lower in the southern sky, filtered, different. The leaves along 23rd Avenue are turning gold and orange and scarlet. The morning silvery light stays throughout the day, and the clouds take longer to burn off. That sunset look - palest blue sky above, almost white along the horizon, yellow light to the west - starts earlier and doesn't heat the west side of the house anymore. I actually cleaned out the furnace filters and have turned the heat on for the mornings when the car windows are fogged over.

I'm sure it's just nostalgia, but I remember fall when I was younger and in the Midwest as beautiful, crisp, clear, scented, smoky, lighter, longer. The rains didn't start as early until I was older, until after my Mom passed away one November, right after the last Peace Rose - her favorite flower - had bloomed unexpectedly for the last time.

Fall was the season of my birthday, of one of my brother's birthdays, of my Dad's birthday. It was the season of Homecoming parades, of going back to school, of a new start. It's now the season of both of my parents' deaths, of rain, of the end of something, of the end of everything. I try desperately to bring life to this season, to re-plant the containers on the front porch, to bring chrysanthemums and late-blooming dahlias and sunflowers inside, to keep candles lit and good food on the table and to forget what this season became - of death, of loss, of leaving, of losing.

I miss my Mom, and my Dad. My Aunt Edith and Uncle Eddie and Grandma Jennie, who were fixtures at our Thanksgiving table for so many years. I miss ... something else. I'll try to find it this fall.