“Becky?”
“Yes, Daddy, it is me.” “
“When did you get here? And where is your mom?”
For the next hour and a half we grieved the loss of my mother together – again. He had many questions about the funeral and the subsequent four years. I answered as honestly as I could and then we sat in silence as the absence fell over us. In my mind the memories came, one at a time, floating down like fall leaves, covering the ground.
Grief is like that. In the first moments of loss it comes like a storm ripping up roots, and knocking you off your feet. But eventually it settles a bit. The wind dies down, a chill settles in, and the leaves come. There is a beauty in it, really.
You see, fall is my favorite season. It always has been. The calendar that I carry is based on the school year… starting in fall and ending in summer. It is like, for me, the whole world gets a reset in the fall. There is exhilaration in my veins as I watch the colors of fall change the common to the extraordinary. But this year, there seem to be more leaves falling. More memories landing on the tender soil of my heart.
My dad’s dementia has brought about the closing up of his apartment and storing the final memories away for a time when we won’t have them anymore. He is sliding closer and closer to the edge of the unknown and unremembered. And I am the gatekeeper for the few memories he is holding onto at the moment. It feels weighty I am afraid, like I am grasping to keep the leaves on their branches and I am just not strong enough.
Perhaps it is this attention to the things of the past, but these are not the only leaves that seem to be falling this year. My heart is sifting through the piles of leaves that have collected over many fall seasons. The leaves left behind by my mother, my brother, my sister, my niece, my friends. So many losses, so many falls.
I was married in the fall, it being my favorite season and all. It was also the season that my husband decided that I was not enough. In a few days the anniversary will drift past and a few more leaves will be shaken loose. This year, the ugly pain of divorce has decided to stab its way through the years in an attempt to slice the refreshing cool, crisp air of autumn with its sharp edges. I am thankful, for the wounds have healed strong and they resist the memories. But it is the barren trees to come – these are the ones that haunt me.
Each year a few more leaves fall and a few more memories with them. With each leaf that lets go, there is a void, an emptiness that takes hold for a moment. The leaves swirl around my head, like a vertigo in my soul, leaving me off-balance and dizzy. Yes, I know that the blanket of winter will come and wrap itself around me. It will hold me until new life finds its way through the soil of my heart. I have lived through this cycle again and again. But for this moment, it is hard to focus on the beauty and the new to come. It is instead, the leaves of absence that capture my attention.