Autumn

I thought I was sad about October - the girls fully established in school, the weather (cold mornings, warmer afternoons, cold evenings, rain, 4 changes in clothing/day for me) and the end of the garden. Those things are sad...and sadder still is that in two days I will have lived 2 months of my life without my Dad.

I hate the way time stretches you away from loved ones...I can feel it stretch and I notice the days as they fill in, putting more days between today and the day when I last had him on this earth. I resisted this passage of time so strongly at first. In the first days I made a calendar of every single thing I did the month before my Dad died, and everything he did - trying to figure out how all this had happened so fast, and how we could have spent any of those days apart.

And it was sad, looking at those days, but that was how it was (how it is) - you live your own lives, and the days just pass. We weren't in the habit of seeing my Dad very much - he loved his job and he also wasn't the kind of person who loved hanging around soccer fields or swim meets or homework tables. And I was/am...in trying to make up for my lack of some of those things in my childhood I embrace the boring moments with my kids (most of the time). I at least want to BE THERE for everything...even if it isn't always totally thrilling for me.

So now, in my effort to always be there, more days are passing...from the last days of being with my dad, from summer and my time with the warm weather, from my garden in 2009. Nathan has had his first two school playdates, the puppy is full-grown, we've had a new kitten for a couple of weeks, new school pictures go up on the wall.

So I'm conflicted. I still feel those twinges of pain - when downloading pictures from my camera, I still can't erase the pictures of my Dad sitting on our couch at my niece's birthday party. He couldn't stand up to sing for her, or eat cake, but he sang from the couch. When I look at my playful new kitten I think she is so cute, but I still don't see any way she'll ever mean as much to me as Nan...and I want to look at pictures and think about those moments with the individuals who either formed my life, or brought so much companionship to my life. Time is stretching though...and I need to start living again too.

I guess I can't be all that sad about October, then. The time is going to keep stretching me away from my parent (and my pet), just as it did before. There's no going back to change that. The only thing that I can do is to make all of these days really worth something to me. If they are going to keep marching on, and I am going to keep noticing them, I want to notice them for the good, and not for just the passage of time.

So, Autumn, let's see what you have to offer.