With my blanket spread across a small patch of green grass, I sit here leaning on a tall oak tree near the bank of the lake. Leaves the color of pumpkin spice dance along the forest floor around me, as I watch a chickadee glide from tree to tree.  Being out here alone makes my mind wander to places it’s never been before. Life is so utterly short, and it makes me realize how fast it is racing by.

The fresh air carries a crisp pine scent that is soft and pleasant like the scent of fresh-cut grass. The wind is calm and nearly non-existent as the sun peeks through the branches around me. As I look at the view in front of me, I notice the trees on the far side of the lake look as if they were put into two groups. The left side is full of trees that are changing into their fall colors, but on the right side the trees are all green. I talk about the trees as two separate groups because right down the middle of the lake is a clearing with few short trees in the distance. Since the trees down the middle are in the distance, they don’t show up in the reflections on the water. The trees that show up in reflections on the water appear to be darker than the strip of water down the middle that has the reflection of the baby blue sky. As I look at the full picture, there’s a bright, clear path surrounded by the dark water.

Choices.

It is something that many of us take for granted. When I look at the lake and see the clear path in the water, it makes me feel grateful for the opportunity that life has given me to take the bright blue path, and to avoid the darkness that could potentially surround me.

Every year when fall dawns upon Minnesota, the beauty of the changing leaves grabs everyone’s attention. My favorite leaves are the atomic bright orange, red, and yellow ones. Everyone admires these leaves for the short few weeks that they are here. But does anyone really notice when they’re gone? As I look around the forest floor covered by a vibrant blanket of leaves, I notice that the ground itself is where the leaves end their life. The leaves that lie on this forest floor have reached their limit. As their grasps to the stems weaken, and their colors change; they will soon see themselves being taken by a gust of wind that tells them it’s time to go. The leaves accept the fact, even if they feel it’s too soon or aren’t quite ready yet. And they peacefully float to the cushioned forest floor.

Eventually, we all reach the end of life at some point in time. It’s a reality that is irreversible. My aunt was taken from our lives far too soon. She was surrounded by the darkness and could no longer see the bright, clear path. An illness known as depression.

She was once a happy, loving aunt that came to all of my sporting events. On the pitching mound, I feel my eyes drifting into the stands to find my number one fan, but once I remember I’ll never see her smiling face cheering me on again, her absence is heavy like bricks on my shoulders. Her death felt like a nightmare, that I would soon wake up from. But at the funeral, it became real. I walked up to my aunt lying there peacefully, no longer with her signature rosey red cheeks, completely lifeless. That is when I had accepted the fact, that my aunt will be watching down on me from heaven--no longer on earth. She had lost her grasp on the stem of life and floated down to that forest bed to lie in peace.  

A little chickadee lands on a branch near me. I look at her, as she looks back at me. And within a split second, she is gone.