Fall into memories

Today was sunny and cool, but very blustery; you could literally sit and watch the clouds blowing in.  (Check out the picture I took with my phone while waiting at the boys’ school.)  While driving around town, looking at the trees that are in the process of changing, I remembered years past and how I’d always loved autumn; how the myriad of colors alone fascinated me.

When I was little, I did the normal kid thing and looked for piles of freshly raked leaves to jump in and then ran away before being yelled at.  Later, autumn meant deer season which meant entertaining my sister at camp while mom and dad were out hunting for hours on end.  By high school, deer season also meant missing out on the fall play because I had to go with the family and watch my sister . . . as if camping in the cold wasn’t bad enough.  After moving out, autumn only meant it was time for colder weather.

Autumn was also a time for birthdays.  We never really did anything for Grandma’s birthday (September), but by the time November rolled around, we were looking for new ways to celebrate Mom’s birthday.  I remember her fortieth very well.  It happened to coincide with Thanksgiving that year and we pulled out all stops.  Our neighbor was able to convince her to go somewhere (I think it was to check on the neighbor’s elderly mother) while the rest of us decorated.  We had one of those “Over the Hill” banners stretched across the front of the house and black ribbons tied everywhere both inside and out – even on the turkey itself!  Mom absolutely FREAKED when she saw what we’d done . . . she loved it!!!  No other birthday could ever surpass that one and she continued to rave about it up until the day she died 8 1/2 years later.

I think it’s time to create new autumn memories for my own children because I’m not satisfied with the ones they have.  They need more fun and less drama; more family and less seclusion; more happiness and less pain.  There’s only one shot at this thing called “life”; might as well enjoy it!