A Fall Day

Mary’s hair had turned gray some time ago and she had grown all too aware of how short life is.

Her mind often wandered to the past, to a place when time was of no great importance. Today, however, was one of those days that reality was slapping her in the face. Today she felt old and somewhat tired. She needed desperately to get her mind somewhere other than where it was.

It was a fall day. The sun was full, and though it was cool, there was no breeze to chill her when she wandered outside. Putting one foot in front of the other she moved mindlessly into the back yard. She glanced down at the fall flowers she had planted and then looked up to notice that the tops of the trees were becoming bare. Soon it would be winter again. Her head bent down and she saw the leaves that had fallen from the tree, when something inside of her made her kick her foot to make the leaves take flight once again. She took step after step repeating the scuffling of her feet to make the leaves jump up and fly to the side or ahead of her.

As her walk ended, she raised her head and found that she had wandered into the woods beyond her yard. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears as she looked into the forest. “There was a time…,” she thought as she drew in a deep breath and let out a sigh.

Her eyes tried to rid their selves of the water that had so often filled them so that she might clearly see the tree that she found herself reaching out to. Gently, almost lovingly, she touched the tree but her eyes began to fill once again. She started to walk, the fallen leaves were deeper then they were in her yard. Listening to the rustle of the dead leaves became soothing to her, and she began to feel a calm washing over her.

“The creek,” she remembered, “it should be right over here.”

She was right; winding around the trees and splashing over intermittent rocks she spotted the small creek. Finding a large boulder she sat down to watch the creek as it floated some of the very leaves she had walked thru, down the winding stream of water, to who knows where.

Time passed when she began to realize that she was no longer sad. She felt tranquil sitting there in the forest, listening to the sounds of the creek and hearing the occasional squirrel rushing about trying to store enough food for the winter.

It was the leaves. The leaves had led her here. The leaves, if only for a while took away her pain and her fear that her life was nearly over. She leaned back on the rock and let her feelings flow from her. The treetops were barren, but in the spring they would come alive once more.

She decided she wanted to be in this very spot to see the new leaves when spring arrived. Drawing in a breath of the cool fall air she sat up and let herself slide off of the rock and onto the ground full of leaves. She picked up a handful and put them to her face to smell them. Smiling for the first time since the day had begun, she tossed a leaf into the creek and felt at peace as she watched it float away.