How the petunias hold onto their color in this year of your death! Improbable color, vitality a surprise in the time of frost and the coming dark.

I look at them in mild wonder, a shallow but palpable appreciation in the season of firsts.

The day after tomorrow? Our first anniversary without you since you were born. Our first anniversary since you died.

We will get take out and stare at a screen and try not to notice how impossible it feels to continue without you.

The yellow maple leaves drift down and land with a soft crinkling sound onto the deck. You can’t see or hear leaves falling anymore, not here, not anywhere.

Each leaf falling signals its place in the natural order. There is nothing natural about your absence. No order or sense in it.

Very soon it will be full dark and another day without you will come to a close.