Love and Autumn

Today is one of those thoughtful days. The eighth anniversary of my grandfather's death, nearly a month marker since I began my fourth year of college and left my family in Vermont. And it is the first day of Autumn, the first day of fall 2009 which officially began at 5:18 this evening...

Every morning as I sit at the registration counter, I hear an insistent banging at the door at around 9:00 and look up to see them coming in, pushing their daughter to work in a wheel chair. It seems rather switched up-- they up and active, she looking tiny and frail, her hair white and fluffy and thin around her head as if it is one delicate dandelion puff that a sudden breeze might blow throughout the lobby. The unusual trio always looks up and wishes us all a good morning as they pass through and into the hallway, always cheerful, rather together-like. Several minutes later the elderly couple walk slowly back past my desk. I always notice then that they are somewhat stooped, their heads white too, and that they aren't perhaps the spry folks they once were. But then my eyes always stray down a little further to their hands for what I know I will see--fingers strong and tightly twined together.

The trees have begun just a little of their rosy-cheekedness around the parking lot and today the misty rain warmed up what will probably be the last wave of summer campus flowers. But there is a solemn beauty in it all that summer's ecstasy can't quite match.