Changing Seasons

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire.

Hues of yellows, from the soft sunlight that grazed the wheat fields to the blazing petals of the daffodils in the garden.

Oranges that matched the thriving pumpkins growing next to the house; the sunrises painted behind the mountains; the flames I stoked in the fireplace every night of the past week.

And reds, my favorite. Red like the apples I carve for my pies. Red like hummingbirds that stick their beaks in the sugary water of feeders hanging from trees.

Red like Lewis’s favorite flannel shirt, the one I wear every night. The one I press to my nose, breathing in the scent of pine and campfires that still cling to the fabric.

I didn’t notice the leaves were on fire until this morning, when I walked out the front door to feed the chickens. They stopped me then, the colors. I stood rooted to the spot, inhaling the vibrance, letting it wash over every pore, letting it fill my mind until nothing existed except those burning leaves.

I sit in the rocking chair now, breathing in the crispness only an autumn day can bring, and close my eyes. A bird twitters from an aspen tree. The stream on the side of the house sings.

Lewis always loved that stream.

I raise my wrinkled hand to my neck and clutch my locket as I lean back in the rocking chair. Lewis gave me the locket for my birthday thirty years ago. It’s silver, the size of a quail egg, and it rests against my heart. I hold it out in front of me and unclasp the latch.

There’s Lewis, smiling from the left side of the locket, back when we had nothing. Fresh college graduates and newly wed, living in that tiny apartment on Woodmoore Road. His hair is dark and full, and the wrinkles I’d grown to adore are nowhere to be seen. Neither is the scar from when I accidentally hit his head with a snow shovel.

I smile at the memory and shift my gaze to the right side of the locket. Our four children stare back at me: Jack, Katarina, Dublin, and Liz.

Liz will be coming by today.

I close my eyes.

It took a lot from them, watching Lewis. Two years of agony. Two years of Lewis bumping cars in parking lots until he rear-ended a student driver, and Jack had to take away his keys. I told Jack I could handle it, but he wouldn’t hear it. Someone has to be the bad guy, Mom, and it can’t be you, he said. He needs you.

Two years of slipping on the hard floors and, once, tripping on the curb in a fall that almost gave me a heart attack. I can still hear the shouts from Katarina and the screaming of the ambulance sirens. Nothing hurt, nothing broken, except for my trust in his balance.

Two years of forgetting our names. Liz was the first, perhaps because she lived abroad for so long. Do you know who I am, Dad? she asked quietly, and when he stared at her with his dull eyes, she excused herself from the room and didn’t come back for hours.

Two years of Lewis struggling to get the words right. He threw things when he couldn’t. It’s fine, Dad, Dublin would say. Take your time. But Lewis, the man who rushed through meals, who earned four speeding tickets in one year on his way back home from work...Lewis never liked taking his time.

Two years of accidentally wetting himself. Two years of his loud voice quieting to a mumble and then, eventually, to nothing at all. Two years of his brilliant green eyes dulling to a faded gray. Two years of shedding fat and muscle and color until he resembled a ghost--a wilting rose in that wheelchair. 

There were good times. He said “Wonderful!” to everything, enunciating and stretching out the first syllable in a silly way that made everyone giggle, even haughty Nurse Ritchie at the Assisted Living Center. He still smiled when Frank Sinatra played on the radio. He even asked me to dance once, back when he could still stand.

We worried about the grandchildren, but he was mostly gentle to them. Mostly.

And he squeezed my hand every time I intertwined my fingers with his. There was no warmth anymore towards the end, but those squeezes still made my heart flutter.

On his last day, he squeezed my hand once more and looked at me with those dull eyes, and I knew.

I held him as he fell asleep, and it was as beautiful as the leaves on fire.

Two years of agony, but fifty-six years of painless love. No, not painless. One must endure pain in love. But I didn’t know true pain--true heart-wrenching, screaming pain, the kind that forces you on your knees to pray to any god, every god--until his diagnosis.

Fifty-six years of kisses, of squeezes around waists, of laughing at nothing in particular, of four children and seven grandchildren, of moving from the bustling city to the sleepy countryside, of feeding the chickens and tending to the flowers, of baking pies together, of hikes through the mountains and paddles in the lake down the road.

Fifty-six years of dying bodies and undying love.

I open my eyes and touch my cheeks, surprised to find the wetness there. Lewis left the world three months ago and I’ve kept myself busy every day since then, so I wouldn’t have time to think about his empty chair by the fire, or the delicious stew he cooked on Fridays.

A breeze rolls through the yard and the leaves swirl in the air. I smile through my tears. I’m not sure what I’m crying about--Lewis or the beauty around me or the fact that I know what’s coming next. 

It’s always been my favorite season, fall. A time for change and leaves on fire.

A time for new beginnings, most of all. I know it’s my time now. My new beginning. I push in the rocking chair one last time and prepare to meet my Lewis.