Season's Change

the nights are beginning to get quite chilly here, and the leaves are metamorphosing into liquid golds and candy apple reds. Fall is coming, the season is changing again. Here in Maine, Fall lasts about 2 months, and then Winter comes, and lasts about 5 months. This time of year is usually seen as the end of the cycle, the dying of the buds and blooms, the end. For my family, Fall is a renewal, the fresh crisp air is a harbinger of hope.
September is tough for us, with the loss of our son, which seems to stretch endlessly throughout the month. His leaving, his killing, his removal from the machines that breathed for him but were never really LIFE. I would skip September altogether if it weren't for Jesse's Birthday and the beauty all around me. My picture window looks out across the river, the mountain rises behind me, and the air is clean and tinged with the smell of woodsmoke. I feel alive in ways I do not feel the rest of the year.
And yet, the changing of the seasons this year brings with it a change of seasons for me, personally, as well. There is a sense of loss for a friendship that doesn't seem to be what it was, that has been tainted with pettiness and anger and seems beyond repair. Even though it seems to be nearing the time when the bloom will fall and the wind will blow hard and cold, it is important to me, valuable, it is a part of what has shaped me.
My summer was hot and passionate, my Fall will be cooler and more airy. My friendship has changed, and it will be different forever, now. But I held it in my hands as surely as I did the Lupine that grows wild and free to welcome Spring. Like the Lupine, it is drifting away from me, but the seeds are planted deep, and perhaps time will bring it back to me. It may have crumbled in my hands, but its beauty will always be with me. Maybe I will be surprised again someday, to see it growing strong and flourishing without a touch from me.
Lupine is strong, and I think...thought?...that this friendship was, too. Maybe it is just the changing of the seasons, maybe it is the strength of the winds that bend us that is pushing us apart. One thing I do know, the strongest and most beautiful wither and die with too much toil. And I have a knack for pushing too hard. I will leave it be and see if it grows back of its own will. The season is changing, and I am changing, too.