“Come Little Leaves…”

Posted on September 29, 2013 by TJ

Autumn is here! Every day is beautiful in autumn, no matter what the weather is. I like rainy autumn days because I feel cozy. I like sunny autumn days because the sunshine lights up the colorful trees.

The two maple trees in our front yard are getting more and more colorful. They always turn a brilliant shade of red. I honestly think they are the most beautiful trees in the village.

When I was two years old my elderly neighbor, a widow who had had no children, began to take me to church with her. It wasn’t too long before I (and later my younger sister when she turned three years old) began to spend Saturday night and all day Sunday at her house. My parents had six children and it was just easier and less hectic for my sister and I to spend the night at Mrs. K’s house and have her get us ready for church. We loved spending the weekend with Mrs. K and I have many special memories of those days with her. She read stories to us, and played games with us, and many other things.

One of my special memories is that every autumn, Mrs. K recited an autumn poem. It wasn’t long before my sister and I memorized it and recited it with her. Although Mrs. K died long ago, I find myself carrying on her tradition of reciting the autumn poem. I taught the poem to my son as well, and every year we recited it together as he grew up.

Mrs. K also had a poem she recited every Spring….but that will have to wait until Spring.

Friday was special because we had a guest for Shabbat. The 18-year-old daughter of our friend RB has celebrated a couple of the Biblical feasts with us, and she enjoys them so much that she asked to celebrate Shabbat with us. She says she always learns so much and feels as if she has feasted on Scripture when she is with us. After EJ left for work, she and I talked for hours. It was so much fun. She is starting college tomorrow and her life will get super busy, but I told her she can celebrate with us whenever she can.

EJ and I woke up this morning to a rainy day. We spent quite a while sipping coffee and deciding what to do with the day. We wrote a list, and then decided to begin with making a stew for lunch. I peeled potatoes and carrots and an onion and EJ put it all together. He also made a sort of sweet potato pie. Yum.

We were planning to get a load of firewood from our friend, but then there was a knock on the door. It was a former now-retired co-worker friend of EJ’s. EJ invited him in, but the guy said something–all I heard was “murmer, murmer, murmer”–and EJ went outside. I didn’t know why he came to our house, but I spontaneously prayed, “PLEASE let him want to buy our RV.” We have been hoping to sell it because we haven’t managed to find the time to enjoy it–and even if we did have the time, we really no longer have anyone to watch our cats for us. The only activity we do with our RV these days is maintain it, which is becoming a burden.

After a while, EJ came back inside. He said that his friend had come to our door to ask us if we wanted to sell our RV. He wanted to buy it. EJ showed him the RV and explained its flaws. His friend kept saying, “That’s no problem.” He left while EJ charged the battery and returned later with money–and then he and his wife drove off with the RV. Yay! Although we had fun in it, it’s a relief to have it gone. It’s also nice to have an unblocked view again.

Now we have a new task on our list of autumn tasks: Our RV was too long for our driveway, which is wider than it is long, so we had to drive its nose past the fence and a little bit into our back yard. Now that the RV is gone, we have to put up a gate again to enclose our yard. We will have to buy another fence piece.

We never did any get to our friend’s place for firewood. Tomorrow.