October 26, 2022
It always amazes me that the
days can drag, but the weeks seem to pass at the speed of light. Already, we’re
into the last week of October. We started out the month with a fair bit of cold
and rain, but these last few days have been comparatively mild. I am counting
my blessings. I don’t like the cold and damp, but only because it exacerbates
the arthritis that I have in so many of my joints. So these mild days have been
a blessing, and I’ve seen to it that I’ve spent a bit of time on the porch,
simply breathing it all in.
Our walnut tree has lost most
of its leaves, and that only began about a week ago. The very next day
after I looked out at it and said to David, “Why hasn’t that damn tree started
to drop its foliage?”
The shedding of our large
walnut usually commences as soon as the first walnuts begin to drop. The
occasion of those nuggets falling always results in a thick carpet of discarded
yellow leaves that cover our porch roof and steps and the walkway. In the
morning, those leaves are often wet thanks to the overnight frost or the
morning dew, and that’s a safety hazard for everyone here, not just the one among
us using a rubber tipped cane.
This year, our daughter was
adamant that her father would not rake those leaves. He went to the doctor last
week as he had a few issues in the aftermath of his horrible cold. Daughter
told him that until he got the all-clear from the doctor, he would do only
light things. To be fair, the doctor did tell him that very same thing himself.
He grumbled quite a bit, but he
did listen to her. So for the first time, daughter raked those leaves, and
bagged them, and set those bags out by the curb. She managed it all in a single
morning. She ached some the next day, but she considered the discomfort worth
it.
We tried not to laugh too hard
when two days later, she looked out the front and said, “It doesn’t even look
like I did anything!” I understood then, that up to this point in her life she
had been spared a cruel reality.
When she had her own place, it
was a house in a newer survey, and there were no mature trees close by. So she
would pick a day in fall and do her outside work, one and done. She had not yet
experienced the reality that if you begin to rake before all the leaves are
down—which you pretty much have to do—then you will be raking again. And again.
Her daddy patted her shoulder
and told her that generally, he rakes three times for the walnut tree.
Yesterday, David got his test
results and was told he could resume all normal activities. He plans to do just
that. Our daughter has said she’ll work with him to get those walnut leaves
into bags and is feeling very hopeful that since there are only a very few leaves
left on that tree, this task will be in the bag—pun definitely intended—in no
time.
Her father and I nodded our
heads and agreed. And smiled at each other when she left the room.
“Are you going to tell her?”
he asked.
“No. I’ll wait, and then I’ll
tell her what I always told you.”
“Good. I feel like we’re sort
of passing down a torch. Life, as it should be.”
The house directly across the
street, which is right there about 60 feet off our porch railing has three
beautiful, tall maple trees. Oh, they are full and beautiful, and as I stepped
out onto the porch just now and admired them, I did see that while they have
some very pretty red and orange leaves, two of those three maples are mostly
green still.
Right there across the street,
not even one hundred feet away.
Friends, those leaves are
going to drop, and I can assure you from past experience that a goodly number
of them will end up on our porch roof, and steps and walkway. And because our daughter
is her father’s daughter most of all, I can well imagine her whining the same
as her daddy has always done.
“But they’re not even our
fricking trees!”
“No,” I will tell her. “They’re
not. But you have enjoyed its presence and beauty all summer, and raking those
leaves is the price you pay for the gift you’ve been given.”
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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