It was cold in Massachusetts last night. The last of the annuals in the garden, stems drooping and blackened by the killer frost, seem to accept their fate. We are all waiting for the inevitable snow.
As I stopped to remember the pungent smell of the marigolds and tomato vines, and recalled the harvest of beauty and fruit, suddenly, the air was filled with leaves, drifting from the elms and oaks along the back fence. Spiraling and spinning like a squall softly to the ground in the still morning air. There was not a breath of wind to knock them from their branches, and I wondered what had made them take flight. But no Crows or foraging squirrels were to be seen.
The air seemed filled with them. Crimson and gold leaves, which had held fast to the branches through the storms and winds of three seasons, now become airborne for that brief final moment before returning to the earth.
I guess it was plain old fashioned gravity pulling them from the branch tips to spiral to the ground. But, did they finally let go, or did the tree decide to let them go? Not that it mattered now. Dust to dust.
We are a lot like those leaves, hanging on to our lives and loves through rain and shine. Then one day we just let go, and then we know the answer.
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