Fall is my favorite.
I repeat, FALL IS MY FAVORITE.
I remember riding in car with my Great Grandma Sue when I was a little girl.
In her blue, 57 Chevy Nova.
With a mini-box of Kleenex in the windshield.
In the Fall, she would always the trees. She loved the colors…
There isn’t a Fall day I don’t thinking about my Grandma Sue. Somedays I even choke back tears.
As I write this, it is hard not to tear up.
She passed away before I had kids. She would have been over-the-moon about my kids. She would have loved to drive around with my kids and look at the changing leaves. They love the colors too…
Though there are blue eyes on both sides of our family (the husbands and mine), when I look into my Lucy’s eyes… I see grandma’s eyes.
Through the trees, her memory rushes over me.
I’ll admit, there was a season of my youth I wasn’t all that into Fall. The colors.
I was into boys and hanging out with friends
I remember a time I wanted her to stop going on and on and on about the trees.
And now I would pay countless millions to cruise around the streets of my hometown in Fall with Gramma Sue.
I know now, she was working to stay connected with me…. making efforts to create opportunities to have conversation. She reached and worked to hold onto a relationship with me… a distracted, hormonal, and very insecure teen.
Her efforts were not in vain. The hormones waned.
And in that season of our relationship she forged a the sweetest, and most treasured forever bond and memory with her great-granddaughter.
Me.
I am full-on crying now.
So… here’s to Fall.
To trees.
To colors.
To pumpkins.
To pumpkin seeds.
To awkward moments building relationships with awkward teens…
To tradition.
Oh tradition…
I don’t know what it is about carving pumpkins, but… it is not my favorite of all the things.
Kids. Sharp objects….
Not that my kids knife their pumpkins, BUT THEY SURE WANT TO.
Carving is a bit stressful.
A lot messy.
Always last-minute.
Yet worth it.
Because they love it.
My oldest is 14, and youngest is 8. If I do the math (which we all know I am not a fan of the stuff)… it is possible I have more years behind me of this little tradition with my kids than I do ahead.
Eeek.
