Beyond the South End

Falling Down and Staying There

A Life Lesson

 

Leaves stay where they fall.

No one picks them up and puts them back in the tree they came from.

Once down they stay there.

No more are they swaying with the other leaves on their own special branch.

Now the autumn wind blows them willy nilly into a big pile with all the rest of the leaves.

Life is like that lonely leaf set adrift among a swirling mass of other leaves they never knew before.

No longer special.

No longer safe with leaves they knew and loved—sitting high in a tree, looking down with pride and sometimes disdain on the humanity below them.

They were once useful. They helped provide shade on a hot summer day. They made rustling music to lull a restless heart to sleep. They enjoyed being buffeted by the wind against the other leaves of their branch.

Now it sits among all the other leaves on the ground. They are all as confused as this one leaf is.

What fate will befall them?

Will they be raked up with the rest of the leaves, stuffed in a bag, never again to see the light of day, never again to feel the wind or the rain?

Will they just turn brown and shrivel up till they are nothing but a dusty reminder of what they once were?

Or will a young girl pick out a special leaf from among the pile of other leaves around it.

Will it be singled out and admired for its longevity on the tree, for its contribution to a more beautiful world?

Will the young girl take it home and preserve it in a scrapbook to be shown to friends and admired again and again for its beauty, for its contributions to the world of nature.

Will it be remembered after all?