Today was such a pretty day. Look up the definition of a fall day and you’ll see a photo of today. The blue sky of fall is so glorious when filled with pure white puffy clouds. Always makes me think of the skies in the picture books I read my children.

I ate my breakfast, sitting in the swing, enjoying the birds and the chipmunks, listening to the music of the wind chimes. Had several porch visitors drop by. My neighbor came over and sat in the double rocking chair while I perched in the swing. We had a good conversation. She lost her partner several weeks ago and is learning how to live without him, beginning her struggle down the path of her widowhood.

My beautiful niece and her beautiful little princess came late afternoon for a porch visit. The crazy chipmunks ran by and the little one stuck her feet up in the air when she saw them! So cute, both of them! The mother princess sat in the swing with one leg resting up in the swing just like her daddy does and her granddaddy always did. Guess it’s a family thing. Three generations of my family porch pondering together! I enjoyed their visit so much!

You ever watched a baby try to color with a crayon? They wrap four fingers around the crayon, their thumb resting on top, and zigzag color uncontrollably across the paper. Tonight’s sunset looked like toddler angels flew down from heaven and colored Mother Nature a sunset masterpiece. With crayons grasped in their tiny hands, they drew childish zigzagged lines, streaked across the sunset’s horizon, in pale hues of blue and yellow. Between the zigs and zags were bleached white layers of pristine sky outlined with turquoise clouds. The sun was a white ball of fire, burning herself out as she slipped down behind the tree silhouetted skyline. Father Sky hung a bright white crescent moon for me in the blue sky of dusk before he took the time to hang his stars. Bet he had to run back and kiss the sun goodnight before she kissed the dark sky of night awake. He was busy!

Fall always brings a few months of melancholy for me. This melancholy hangs around till Spring. My melancholy is not necessarily sadness and depression but a reflection of things I love and long for. It starts in the middle of September when my daughter, who died at 17, has a birthday. Then the holidays creep in with family dinners and celebrations where places are not set for her and my husband. Empty chairs with empty spaces in my heart. When I set all the holiday tables I put Chief’s place card on the dining room table close to my place setting and I put Rosie’s on the table where her brothers sit.

During the festivities, I grieve for the grandchildren Rosie would have brought to the celebrations. In my mind I see chubby cheeked toddlers, beautiful like their mother, blond hair and blue eyes. I grieve she died before she and her brothers could enjoy being adults together and I grieve her oldest brother’s children are growing up without her as their aunt. I don’t want Chief and Rosie to be forgotten and I especially don’t want Rosie to be the one, in a generation or two from now, who can’t be identified in earlier family holiday group photos. I grieve that Chief can’t see our beautiful grandchildren growing up and how happy Thomas and his family are. I grieve he can’t see the ten novel manuscripts his youngest son Stewart has written, stacked on his father’s desk.

After the holidays pass the anniversary of Chief’s death comes along on January 2, the anniversary of Rosie’s car accident on March 17, our wedding anniversary on March 28, and Chief’s birthday on March 29. Once these milestones have passed the warmth of the coming spring and the heat of summer soothe my melancholy. Chief loved spring and when I see the first daffodil my heart fills with memories of him always gifting me that first flower of spring.

I love this quote by Annette J. Dunlea, “Grief is the last act of love we give to our loved one. Where there is deep grief there is great love.” I’m living this phrase.

I pray to the birds because I believe they will carry the messages of my heart upward. I pray to them because I believe in their existence, the way their songs begin and end each day — the invocations and benedictions of Earth. I pray to the birds because they remind me of what I love rather than what I fear. And at the end of my prayers, they teach me how to listen. —Terry Tempest Williams