Dead Leaves

     I hate this time of year. It's no longer summer, but it's not yet fall. It's "in limbo" time, with dead leaves littering the ground, the deck, the sidewalk, the patio furniture. It's an odious harbinger of the lifeless months to come.
    It's a sad time. Even the crickets sound sleepy - and the long, light-filled evenings I love so much are getting shorter and shorter. It's also a reminder of two years ago when the world as I knew it began to come apart at the seams. The summer had been marked by physical pain for the man I loved more than life itself - which inevitably led to rounds of specialists and endless testing - and ultimately, the hopeless diagnosis.
     I stood among the ruins of our life, among the fallen leaves, with our furniture replaced by hospital "appliances," and I kept focusing intently on acceptance. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change..."  I knew it - he knew it - there was no discussion. We only had to look into each other's eyes, and we knew. It was a day-to-day marathon. I thought of a dear friend who used to say, "Step out in faith. Do what you can as gracefully as you can. Expect God to help." It became my mantra, or litany, all day, every day, as I did my best to care for my dying husband.
     Caring for someone who is dying, especially someone you love, is tough, grueling work. Add to that the emotional strain of helplessness and grief, and you have a recipe for exhaustion that is un-equaled in my experience. Sleep deprivation, companionship deprivation, hope deprivation - "the days dwindle down" - one tired day blends mercilessly into the next. The night slips in a little earlier each evening, and pretty soon the trees are bare and the air is cold.
      In the late-late hours of one of those cold nights, I had him sitting on the edge of the bed, and I was struggling to remove those damnable tight elastic stockings that made him so uncomfortable. I was kneeling on the floor with my head at the level of his knees - and I suddenly felt his hand on my head, and he stroked my hair - lovingly, tenderly. I didn't know that this would be the last time he'd be able to  reach out voluntarily and touch me. No words were necessary - he knew how tired I was, and I knew how heartsick he was - and those few sacred moments will live with me as the most intimate in our life together. He was comforting me, as he had a million times before - my hero, my protector, now mortally wounded.
     And so it is that I hate this time of year, which in my heart represents the beginning of the end of so many things. All of my memories hurt right now, and I wonder when and if the pain will ever end.