Summer's final hurrah

The past few days the air has held a certain scent and feel to it, a crispness and a coolness that flood me with memories. Hotter days are sure to return but those first hints of Autumn coming always pull so much up inside of me. That scent and feel signal that school will begin soon and with it the certainty of routine and the onset of Fall. As a child I would have both a mixture of excitement to return to school and also the sadness of ending the free for all days of summer. Most mothers I know are glad to see school and the routine return. I must say, I'm a bit sad to send Ella off for her last year of Montessori Children's House. She will be gone all day since it is the equivalent of Kindergarten. I'm really going to miss her. Zane could have begun this fall but I'm so glad I chose to wait. The emptiness would have been too much for me.

This morning I have opened all of the windows and turned on the fans to let that wonderfully cool air inside. Ella is up early and is ready to hit the road for vacation. We leave today for a week at the lake and then after that Brad and I travel to Seattle together. So, this really has been our last week of summer at home. Brad and Zane are still asleep and while Ella busily packs for her little pony, I decided to rest my head on her pillow. A flood of memories comes back as I view from her open window a world of green illuminated by the morning sun. As a child I loved sleeping with my window open and waking up to the sound of the birds and bugs and that coolness that came with the ending of summer. I loved the morning light and still do. For a moment, I feel young and hopeful again. I remember loving the thought of my own birthday ahead. Now it is the excitement of planning and preparing for Ella and Zane's birthdays. Brad and I married in the fall as well. There is so much celebration awaiting us in the days ahead.

But now there is even more depth to these memories. Before it was just one happy thing after the next. Now, there is the memory of a year ago. Now mixed in with birthdays and our anniversary is the revelation that our third child would not live. I think about how at this point last year we still had no idea that anything was wrong. We still lived in that easy, expectant innocence, in the naivete that life would always be good to us. But the ending of summer has always had a certain sadness to it anyway. It is the marking of the entrance of death, of winter. As glorious as Autumn splendor is to me it really is just a beautiful goodbye. So, perhaps now I grasp more fully what has always characterized this season, both joy and pain.

"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in
the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your
life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have
always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief."

The Prophet
Kahlil Gibran