Excerpt

September 22nd

Dear Rebecca,

I believe that today is the first day of fall. Even if this is not true by the calendar, it is clearly true in nature.

The leaves of the elm tree are aflame; the grass is losing its green richness. I sat for quite a while on the larger, brown chair in the living room. Ostensibly, I sat there to read, but the book rested on my lap as I watched the leaves twist and turn their way down to their soft landing. I enjoyed the beauty in the colors and the dancing descent, while concurrently I wondered if each leaf knew that this descent was the ultimate proof that it was, although rich in beauty, undeniably dead.

I am not pleased that I am so comfortable with such morbid thoughts.

I am hoping that this deeper melancholia is brought on by the change in the weather, yet I fear it is not so.

After a while, I did manage to return to my reading. Oddly, it was Birches, by Frost.

I am certain that you recall these lines.

So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
and life is too much like a pathless wood.

I am trying Rebecca, but I feel myself losing.



September 25th

Dear Rebecca,

In other years, I would have been back to class by now. Not this year and perhaps not ever. Ever. That seems like quite a long time, doesnt it?

Interesting words. There is ever. And also forever, and of course the sometimes get doubled, for surety. Forever and Ever.

We use those words in such a casual way, and we should not. I am stopping now to consider the power of them, the finality of them. They are sincere words, sometimes as in a promise or an oath.

We used them on our wedding day.

We promised to do this, that and the other, forever.

Forever.

And at the end of our lives, we use the familiar, forever and ever, Amen.

I am contemplating the deep meaning of those words Rebecca, and I am nearly crushed under the weight of what they should have meant and what they have come to mean.

Did you ever contemplate forever, Rebecca?

Do you now?

I am,

Forever Yours.