"I've got to tell you something," she said one afternoon, and gathered us and sat us down in the wood panelled living room. "Look at the window, at the leaves, they're all a different color." And sure enough, they had changed. Autumn had come for my mother. "They look so pretty, so alive, but do you know what's going on? Their life is over, though it's beautiful, they've actually already gone."

Where do they go, I wanted to know, and she told me, "One day not long ago, these leaves were bright, young, and full of life. Not a care in the world, don't know the meaning of strife. Up on their branches swaying in the breeze, eventually spawning several baby leaves. Spring gives way to summer and glorious, warm sun, but eventually that season, too, is done. They see cool, crisp mornings, and the harvest moon at night, and give us these colors, reds and oranges, so bright. The most amazing time of year, don't you agree? But their Calling is done, their Circle complete. All they have left is to fall to the ground. If no one's around, will they make a sound? They slip from that branch, the only world they know, and drift softly into the banks of snow. You ever notice that winter's such a quiet season? The leaves patiently wait for the next life, with good reason. For though they aren't there, not in the leaf form, they come back in the spring to see their grandbabies born. They're the flowers on hedges and the vines underfoot, the anchors for everything, the deep solid roots.

"Now, you two girls are my family tree, and I need you to really be here for me. I'm going through an Indian Summer of my own, and the cancer is in my bones, it has grown. We'll do all we can, to beat Nature's plan, but at least I know there's a soft place to land."

And with that, the leaves outside fell from high, and snow began to sprinkle from the sky. We went through the motions of a normal winter, but sometimes I heard hints dropped here or there. The ice melted with spring and the April showers, and of course May brought all the beautiful flowers, that she loved to tend, to no end, yet never pretending to be on the mend.

The great, hot summer came, and as always it went, yet this time I knew that her energy was spent. The harvest moon rose and cast all a new color; her leaves had changed, autumn had come to my mother. The winter passed quietly like she had once said, though I saw no sugar plums dance in my head.

But twinkling snow did eventually reveal soft grass, and there it was, I finally saw it at last. A single, green shoot topped with a bright pink bloom, shining in the sun of a June afternoon...

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