I’m a couple weeks behind the amazing Autumn leaf color-fest here in Minnesota—by now, most have fallen to the ground. But social displays of wonder are preempted by occurrences of life, death, and life. The possibility of losing a loved one (and I want to add the word ‘again’) grabs one’s attention from the mundane day-to-day as well as the seasonal wonder. It focuses our attention on the past, on the relationship, and on the absolute and pure preciousness of a person. When death is on deck, it changes things.
I was emotionally exhausted when we came back from Missouri. Everything tends to grind to a halt for me as I try to process everything that has happened. The first day back I was rather catatonic—I didn’t move much, and my thinking about anything was blurry and scattered. I sat outside and let the sunlight sink into my skin. The following weekend, Chris and I journeyed to the golden cathedral of a Maple forest. A forest of mostly Sugar Maples turns the most brilliant yellow-gold in those fleeting days of Autumn color. Being a prairie girl, it was an extraordinary delight when I first went to the Maples of Lake Maria State Park in the fall of 2014 and wrote ” The Trees Were Glowing.” Every year since then, we find a Maple forest in which to bathe in the ethereal glow of the gilded leaves.
The day was cloudy, which made for a different kind of glow. No rays of sunlight danced on the leaves and slipped to the leaf-covered forest floor. The cloudy light was reflected back and forth from leaf to leaf like a humming song filling the air.
A relatively ‘young’ part of the forest had tall, straight-trunked trees, like a colossal choir dressed in robes of gold, swaying to the humming song.
Two large rocks at the base of two older-barked trees, along with a flexible, bent-over young Maple, created an alter of sorts. We pray for the souls of our loved ones.
With awe, we stood by the Grandmother and Grandfather Maples whose branches reached out wide and tall, proclaiming their time-honored wisdom. Like all elders, they deserve respect for all they have seen, all they have lived through, and all the hardships they have survived.
Pines shed a certain number of needles each fall, usually from the interior of the branches. Their winged pairs often get caught on other foliage, as do the bright-colored leaves.
We came to a clearing in the forest where Sumacs grew along the edges, happy in the more abundant sunshine. The deep red leaves are a sharp contrast to the golden Sugar Maple leaves. Sumacs are one of the first to change color, so by this time, many had already lost their leaves. But in contrast to most other shrubs and trees, they retain their striking brick-red seedheads throughout the winter.
The younger stems are fuzzy and pink, and after the leaves drop, look like arms raised in hallelujah!
Tucked into a little valley that protected the Sumac from leaf-dropping wind, was a spectacular display of a community of trees of all colors, sizes, and shapes! In the center of the fall color was an Eastern Red Cedar with a shine of gray-blue ‘berries’ (actually small cones) dusted on its branches.
We walked back into the forest where even an uprooted tree looked like a woodland sculpture with the background of golden leaves.
One part of the trail had beautiful red-leaved Maples that added to the color palette of our rustling footsteps.
Then before we left, the clouds broke away, and the sun flooded the golden cathedral with shimmering light!
Death was a swing and a miss this time around, thank the Good Lord, but all the feelings and sensations of uncertainty, compassion, love, loss, and grief took us on a roller-coaster ride. It’s funny how we are never quite prepared for it, even when we’ve been in similar circumstances before. It’s like the forest coming alive with golden light as the leaves are dying—life, death, and life again. We tend to take for granted the long Summer of green when all is well, then panic and wail a bit when leaves change and fall. Mother Nature has shown us time and time again that that is not the end of the story. As people of faith and mercy, we believe that, but as people of doubt and confusion, we constantly need reassurance that it will be so. So in the aftermath of such a roller-coaster of emotions, it is a healing balm to walk into the golden cathedral forest, to be surrounded and blessed by gilded light, and to raise our arms and hearts, along with the trees, in a humming song of Hallelujah.
