Letting Go

A bouquet of lilies with a single red rose placed at its center shifted from one side of the passenger seat to the other. The sweet aroma permeated the vehicle, though Sean no longer noticed it. He could feel the winding road beneath him as the tires of his '03 Mustang gripped the pavement tighter with each curve. A signed David Ortiz baseball card swung from the rearview mirror.

He grabbed his shades as the first rays of sunlight peeked over the horizon. Towering trees crowded the road, their fallen leaves blowing in the cool air. Autumnal hues reflected against the silver paint of the car as it charged down Daniel Shays highway. The forest blurred and transformed into a dazzling display of red, yellow and orange.

Sean recalled his father raking leaves into a pile dense enough for him to jump into from the patio. Following each jump, his father would fix the pile while Sean sprinted back to the patio to jump again, over and over until his tiny lungs pleaded for a break. That adrenaline rush was pure bliss to him then. He remembered lying on the grass with his father afterwards, chest heaving, leaves still clinging to his sweater.

"Dad, how come the leaves keep falling off the trees?" he asked between breaths.

"It's because the leaves are dying, Sean – it happens every fall, when it starts to get too cold."

"Oh," he said. "Is that why they change colors?"

"That's right. But, when the weather warms up in the spring, the leaves come back again, just as green as before."

"Oh." Sean picked a leaf from his sweater and examined it closely. "Cool."

The image of that leaf is still engrained in his memory. His small fingers holding it up by the stem, against the soft blue backdrop of the cloudless sky above; the red pigment swarming the green, like an untamed wildfire engulfing a forest.

Sean grew to love the fall. Fall was the World Series, Halloween, and Thanksgiving. It meant warm hoodies and his favorite blue jeans, apple-picking and pumpkin-smashing with his friends, steaming hot cider donuts that melted in his mouth and chilled apple cider to wash them down with. Fall was the crunch of leaves beneath his feet as he chopped wood for the fireplace, and the satisfying crack when it split down the middle.

In the past, Sean had dreaded the fall giving way to the winter. He hated clearing the end of driveway, only for the plow to deliver another foot of snow as it passed his house. He hated how, after just fifteen minutes, the cold pierced his boots and both pairs of his socks, numbing his toes with a dull pain that left them red and raw. Most of all, he hated the look of disappointment from his father when he would inevitably take a break, running inside to warm up by the fireplace.

His father was a simple man, a mechanic by trade, but his wisdom and intellect were more akin to those of an engineer. He spoke calmly and deliberately, with a confidence in his demeanor that Sean had always attempted to imitate.

And he never complained.

In the years spent shoveling together, not once had Sean heard his father complain of the cold. He was seemingly unfazed by the sharp wind that cut through Sean like the neighbor's snow blower through that endless sea of white.

"Life is supposed to be hard," he would say. "Always has been, always will be. The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be."

While shoveling on an especially frigid night, after a blizzard that brought record snowfall to New England, Sean noticed his father had a bad cough. He decided he would try his luck.

"Uh, hey dad? What do you say we ask Mr. Barrett if we could borrow his snow blower?"

No response.