I Miss You, Carol - Day 203 - (Semi) Daily Haiku - On seasons, changes, and coping.

I miss you, Carol,
always have and always will.
I wish you were here.

Today was an odd mix for me, and a somewhat odd day in general.

Growing up in the Sunbelt, fall was always my favorite season, as it meant an end to summer's often oppressive heat; and, in California, it meant the tourists were going home.

Fall and winter were our respite, when we had the beaches to ourselves, and even tourist destinations were inhabited largely by locals.

It also meant that it was time to plant for the fall garden, a time of growing things and cooler temperatures, and generally a dry season. And of course there was the changing of the leaves, though we didn't see much evidence of that where we lived, unless we drove into the mountains.

In Florida things were somewhat flip flopped, with August and September being the most oppressive months by far, generally very wet and humid, and still too hot and oppressive to plant the fall garden, which usually waited until at least late October.

In Florida, rather than going home, it was autumn when the tourists would begin arriving in earnest, resulting in ever-increasing traffic, until they finally arrived en masse when the first real cold fronts barreled their way through our northern latitudes.

The snow birds had arrived, and would remain, until spring was well underway.

Then we moved to Tennessee, which unlike the Sunbelt, has real winters, sometimes brutal cold, and piercing winds. Heavy snows are rare, which is actually harder on trees and plants, as they lack the insulating cover of the snow to protect their roots.

Autumn here begins early, as our Yoshino cherry had lost nearly all its leaves well before the end of August, several cool nights pointed the way to much colder weather to come, and our growing season began drawing to a close.

And that is the hardest part, for me, of living here; having lived my entire life where I gardened year round, to have months on end where every plant I care about has to live inside under artificial conditions is more than a little depressing.

As beautiful as it is, autumn is no longer the season to which I look forward the most.

Then again, although I failed to get a commemorate the event with a photo, the companion of our lovely night-blooming cactus above graced us with its first-ever bloom in late August, whereas the larger specimen has so far bloomed in late June and early July. Live is wonderful and getting better, better and better.

And my melancholy is compounded by losses.

One of the things we always looked forward to as kids was that Carol's birthday was September 21st, heralding the beginning of autumn, and mine was right before Halloween, so autumn was the time of both of our birthdays, both of which fell on the same day of the week every year. Time for celebration indeed.

Until eight years ago, in 2010, when my sister died nine days short of her birthday, at age fifty-five. I had known that she was ill, but she had kept from me just how serious her illness had become.

And then four years later, our mother, who had suffered a major stroke ten years earlier, died on Carol's birthday, tying the date up neatly with a spiritual bow. And Marek, my eldest sister and I all felt that she was going to choose that day to pass over.

Today Carol would have been sixty-four, a milestone, as it was her favorite number; the cube of four.

We joked, when we were kids, about being crotchety old ladies rocking on the porch together, not that she ever thought that she would live that long. She began predicting her own early demise while still in her teens.

But today was less a day of sadness, and more a day of introspection, of reflection, and of taking stock. It is a time of learning from the past and moving forward with commitment.

Yes, I talked to her a lot today. And yes, I've been reminded of her constantly in recent days, not least when I pulled into our driveway this evening at precisely 19:54; which was of course the year she was born.

I do wish she had lived long enough to see our place here, as I know she would have loved it, and would have thought it every bit as beautiful as we do.

I wish that she and Marek had had the time and opportunity to really get to know one another, as I know they would have been fast friends, and we would have had an absolutely blast together.

They did get to speak on the phone a few times, and that was a lot of fun, and frequently hilarious. She was, and he is, among the fastest, funniest and smartest people I've ever known, as was our mother.

I'm beyond blessed to have had them all in my life.

This post, and all those from now until the end of 2018, I am dedicating to the work of #tarc and #yah, aka @rhondak's nonprofit dog rescue and @sircork's charity @youarehope.

Half the liquid proceeds earned from my posts will be evenly split between the two organizations.

The photo above was taken by me today using my Samsung Note 8 smartphone.

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