Some Days...

are better than others.

Today was a golden day: Indian summer at her best. Seventy-six degrees of perfect warmth and trees flaunting myriad reds and yellows silhouetted against a blue Nevada sky. Nemo and The Loan Shark and their three little goldy friends spent the day basking in the sunny and shallow end of the pond. Kharma and Zelda stretched out on the green grass soaking up the warmth. Leaves were raked and Golden Delicious were harvested.

Even though I enjoy Fall, I prefer Summer. Summer is a live-in-the-moment season. I get to revel in the beauty of each new rose as it opens, revisit garden stalwarts that appear and reappear year after year, and explore subtle new combinations of flowers. It's an uncomplicated season that begs to be enjoyed with every sense we possess.

Fall is more reflective. It's flamboyant, yes, but with an undercurrent of imminent chill. The sun shines cooly and each day loses precious minutes of light. The colorful leaves come with a price; the heavy frosts that liberate crimsons and saffrons in the oaks and maples kill the tender flowers that have flourished all summer. October and November are a balancing act between a melancholy frame of mind and the childlike delight of crunching through crispy fallen leaves. Winter is lurking--ice and snow and nippy winds. Even while my herbaceous perennials are disappearing, I'm envisioning what changes will have to be made and when. It helps to know that fresh Spring and lively Summer will follow the coming months of single digit temperatures and frozen earth. Knowing that the months which are a gardener's delight will end spurs me to embrace carpe diem. Maybe the philosopher who coined the term also had dirt under his fingernails and collected seeds to sow. Philosophy is an occupational hazard for anyone who gardens or farms.

This evening brought sad news, not unexpected, but still crushing. This morning a wonderful neighbor became a widow at a ridiculously young age; my son's boyhood friend lost his father; two young women will never take their dad's arm as they walk down the aisle. There are unborn grand-children who will never hear their grand-father's laugh. Ahead is grief and a year of mourning when each birthday and anniversary and holiday carelessly arrives as though nothing earthshaking has happened. Tears will fall at odd moments. Their eyes will clutch hopefully at a familiar male shape as it strolls ahead, yet it won't be the one they seek. A husband and father has died and so has summer for one family.

And yet, and yet...although I know winter has clutched their hearts today, I know also that someday spring and hope and possibility will arrive again. Someday his memory will spark reminiscent chuckles and humorous tales at family gathering. They'll hear his laughter in each other's voices. They'll feel his love in hugs of welcome or farewell.

No one of us gets through life alive (although none of us truly believes it). Though nothing is forever, paradoxically, change is at the heart of the eternal circle. Fathers and mothers pass. Infants grow to children and become fathers and mothers in turn. Sunrise, sunset. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring.

Meanwhile, his death today has reminded us yet again to enjoy the ride, revel in the crunchy leaves and sapphire skies, enjoy the frosty morning walks. Sorrow and loss are easier to bear when joy and happiness, friendship and song, chuckles and jokes are the legacy that one leaves behind. He made the world a better place and what better epitaph could any of us have?

Requiem in pacem, my friend. Pain is behind you, heaven is richer, and love lasts forever.