The Last Few Weeks of Autumn

It looks like this weekend will be a climax of color – and shortly the splendor of this year’s autumn will wane. The wordless evangelist across the street and many other oaks and maples on our street are bursting with colors that make me think of Septembers and Octobers around the Maryland! 

 

Leaves, Clapping their Hands

The fly in the ointment is that only a few days ago, I had all the flower beds cleaned and mulched – now they are perfectly prepared to be covered by all those autumn leaves drifting by my windows.

Timing has never been my strong suit.

But today is sunny and almost eighty – and I have the good sense to know this moment is a gift.

Beside me, a book is making an appeal – Finish me! Atul Gawande’s book,  Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is the first book I ever tackled about the inescapable realities of aging and death. I am uneasily aware that it  might be a kind of  treasure map plotting out what I might expect. Thus far, I commend the book. Being forewarned many enable a wee bit of forearming.

Dr. Gawande includes bittersweet stories of real people, their families, care-givers and doctors trying “to solve a deceptively simple puzzle: what makes life worth living when we are old and frail and unable to care for ourselves.” (Page 92, emphasis added) And he has includes his experiences from India and other historical notes of how we arrived at the current crises of eldercare.

Old age really isn’t for sissies; nobody gets out of this life without hitting a few rough patches –and many of us face scary lonely stuff!  

I prefer to gaze at the autumn leaves.

·      Won't you come into the garden? I would like my roses to see you. ~Richard Brinsley Sheridan

·      God understands our prayers even when we can't find the words to say them. ~Author Unknown 

. . . He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.

Even youths will become weak and tired,

and young men will fall in exhaustion.

But those who trust in the LORD

will find new strength.

They will soar high on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint.

Isaiah 40:29-31

And guess what has blanketed the yard as I wrote?

Leaves . . .