Falling out of the sky

I stepped outside the other day and looked up into a bluish-gray sky. The temperature had dropped a few degrees and I needed to zip up my jacket to keep the chill out. I was shocked to find a few things falling to the ground. It wasn’t rain, snow or hail. It wasn’t a bird or plane either. No meteors or falling stars. I was miles away from the nearest golf course. No, a rainbow of red, orange, yellow, and brown leaves fell lazily to the ground.

I kicked the large piles of leaves collecting on the ground. I wasn’t sure if I should raise my fist to the sky in anger at the thought of raking all those leaves. Of course, I couldn’t help but laugh and smile too. The leaves represent winter’s coming onslaught and even loss. They mean winter jackets, gloves and a hat, and seeing your breath collect on a frigid day. Let’s get real. The falling leaves mean icicles and snow too, gosh darn it.

It means other things too.

But that’s okay. Loss brings acceptance. And, acceptance brings wisdom.

–“If you want to fly in the sky, you need to leave the earth. If you want to move forward, you need to let go of the past that drags you down.” —Amit Ray

–“Some of us think holding on makes us strong but sometimes it is letting go.” —Hermann Hesse

–“The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered.”  —Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

–“Sometimes surrender means giving up trying to understand, and becoming comfortable with not knowing.” —Eckhart Tolle

–“When I let go of trying to be everything to everyone, I had much more time, attention, love, and connection for the important people in my life.” —Brené Brown