Autumn

Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!

This excerpt from "Autumn Fires" by Robert Louis Stevenson pretty much sums up how I feel about autumn. This is my favorite time of year. The vibrant colors, the crispness in the air, the festivals of Oktoberfest, Thanksgiving and Hallowe'en; all around one sees a celebration of the earth's bounty even as both man and nature prepare for the winter hibernation. Alright, most of us don't actually hibernate, but there is a definite slowing of pace as winter approaches. We travel less, the shorter days leave many less inclined to work as many hours as they might during the longer days of summer, and I like to think that we spend more time in the comfort of our homes with our families.

In my hemisphere of the world, the constellation Orion, the hunter, can be seen directly overhead in the early morning hours before the sun rises. By December, it will be visible at night. Orion is my favorite constellation, possibly because I associate it with this season. It's one of the larger constellations and includes several of the brighter stars in our galaxy. There's even a nebula hiding in his scabbard. He seems to stretch out his arms as if to embrace the Earth.

Being an essentially lazy person, I don't much care for the chore of raking up fallen leaves, and their beauty as they cover the dormant, yellowing grass with a multi-coloured carpet makes me even more reluctant to remove them. I know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. In his book, "All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten", Robert Fulghum writes:

"Across the back of our house is a row of middle-aged matronly maple trees, extravagantly dressed in season in a million leaf-sequins. And in season the sequins detach. Not much wind in our sheltered yard, so the leaves lie about the ladies' feet now like dressing gowns they've stepped out of in preparation for the bath of winter.

I like the way it looks. I like the way it looks very much. My wife does not. The gardening magazine does not like it, either. Leaves should be raked. There are rules. Leaves are not good for grass. Leaves are moldyslimy. But I like leaves so much, I once filled my classroom at school ankle-deep with them.

There is a reason for leaves. There is no reason for mowed grass. So say I."

Here's to you, Robert. It's always nice to meet a kindred spirit.

The Opposite Of Selfishness

Next month, my wife, Judy, and I will celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. That feels like an accomplishment. Most of my daughter's friends seem to come from single-parent families, foster homes or homes that include either a step-parent or a live-in boyfriend or girlfriend. Teenagers who live with the same two, lawfully-wedded people who conceived them definitely seem to be a minority these days.

To those of my friends who read this blog whose first attempts at marriage were not as successful (and you know who you are), I'm not gloating. The fact is, a successful marriage takes the complete commitment of both partners. It takes understanding, compromise and, of course, love. No one partner can ever make a marriage work single-handedly, no matter how hard they work at it.

That having been said, I give Judy most of the credit for the success of our marriage. I have my share of personal foibles and she learned to accept a number of shortcomings on my part early on in our relationship. I like to think that I've matured over the years and overcome some of them, but I demanded a lot of patience from her during our time together, and I've not yet attained perfection.

If I'm making marriage sound like a lot of work, it is, and yet it isn't. A successful marriage is founded on love and, when you love someone, you don't mind going that extra mile for them. Sacrifices don't feel so much like sacrifices. You do things, not out of a sense of responsibility, but out of a simple desire to make your partner happy. Let me give you a couple of personal examples.

Practically since the day we were married, Judy has arisen with me early each morning, and fixed my breakfast and lunch before seeing me off to work. For many years, she didn't work outside of the home. The special needs of our son, Christopher, demanded a full-time, stay-at-home parent, and Judy shouldered that responsibility. That meant that she didn't need to be up at any particular hour and, during Christopher's infancy, she was often up with him in the middle of the night. She accepted most of the midnight parenting because I had to get up for work the next day, and she didn't. This, of course, made her even more tired when our alarm woke me for work the next morning, yet she still got up with me, made my breakfast and lunch while I showered and shaved, joined me for a cup of coffee, and then retired back to bed (if Christopher wasn't already awake) only after I left. She did the same after our daughter, Jessica, came along as well.

Most of her friends were aghast upon learning that she did this. Most swore that they would never, ever do that for their husbands. Judy didn't have to do it either. I didn't demand it of her. She did it for me because she wanted to. Making me happy made her happy. To her, it didn't feel like a sacrifice at all.

I try to reciprocate. Judy never learned to drive so, whenever she needs to go anywhere, I generally drive her. She likes to have her mother, sister and best friend over to visit on Saturday evenings. As it happens, none of them drive either, and they would often choose not to visit us if it meant having to take a bus or pay for a cab. So, every Saturday evening, I pick them all up after supper and then take them all back home again at the end of the evening, sometimes in the middle of the night. I don't do it for them. I do it for Judy, because I know that she enjoys their company and might be deprived of it if I didn't help out.

These days, Judy does work outside of our home, and starts work about half an hour earlier than me, so I get up just a bit earlier than I would otherwise have to so that there's time for me to drop her off at work before going to work myself. While I shower and shave, she still makes my breakfast and my lunch, even after all these years.

Thinking about this recently gave me a new insight regarding the nature of love. It seems to me that love is the opposite of selfishness. Selfishness means putting one's own needs and interests first. When you love somebody, you put that person's needs and interests ahead of your own. And here's the key; you don't do it because you have to. You do it because you want to.

Christopher

I've mentioned my daughter, Jessica, on this blog. I used to have a son named Christopher, too. Christopher was born prematurely. His first few weeks of life were fraught with problems. He couldn't breath on his own. He was weak. There was internal bleeding in his brain, which caused excess pressure inside of his skull. A shunt had to be surgically installed to drain the fluid from his brain and ease the pressure. All this would be traumatic for a fully-grown adult, to say nothing of a new-born baby.

Christopher proved strong enough to survive these ailments, but they did leave their scars. He was severely afflicted with cerebral palsy for his entire life. He passed away, four years ago today, because of complications from his condition, at the tender age of fifteen.

We all know the story of the Grinch who tried to steal Christmas. The Grinch hated Christmas, and he wanted everyone else to hate it too – and he decided that he could make that happen by taking away from the Who’s all the seemingly good things about Christmas; all those things that would seem to make Christmas worthwhile. The gifts, the toys, the Christmas trees and decorations – even all of the food.

Having taken away all of these things, the Grinch waited in anticipation as the sun rose on Christmas Day, expecting to hear the Who’s wailing and lamenting. But then, something unexpected and wonderful happened. Instead of crying, the Grinch heard the Who’s singing.

Christopher was deprived from birth of many of the things that would seem essential to a happy, meaningful existence. He couldn’t walk. He couldn’t even sit up unsupported. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t feed himself or play with most toys. He couldn’t change channels on TV and was at the mercy of whatever his sister decided to watch most of the time.

It would have been perfectly understandable if Christopher had been a sullen, unhappy, withdrawn little boy. He could have cried and complained most of the time, and who could have blamed him? One might almost expect it.

And yet, he didn’t. In fact, he had a smile that could light up a room. He found pleasure in the smallest, simplest of things. A nice, warm bath. A cuddle in an easy chair with mom or dad. Even the simple jostling of his wheelchair when it rolled over rough or uneven ground elicited giggles and laughs.

And just like the Who’s taught the Grinch that there was more to Christmas than gifts and decorations and food, Christopher taught everyone whose life that he touched that living is good and worthwhile, even when most of what’s taken for granted by everyone else is missing. Christopher knew a secret that few people know. And though he couldn’t talk, he tried to tell it to us anyway.

One of Christopher's most striking features was his large, expressive blue eyes. Thinking about those eyes inspired me to make a photo slideshow in his memory about a month after he passed away. On this, the anniversary of his passing, I've decided to share it with others by posting it on YouTube and here on my blog. I think that it expresses more poignantly than any words can what he meant to me and to the rest of his family and how much we all miss him. Here it is.