For Every Missing Shade

Short Story 4: When Seasons Fade

Autumn was always my favorite season. I loved the colors. When I lived in Denver I would look at mountains for hours every day as they changed. It was like I was receiving one last burst of energy, one last ray of light before the Earth fell asleep one more time.

Things change. I can't seem to edit that part of my life away. It happens to everyone.

My mom told me at a young age that I was going to have a brother. She said that he was growing in her tummy. Her stomach grew and grew, but one time it stopped growing. She came back from the hospital one day looking like she did months earlier, but I didn't have a brother yet. It took a while, but I realized that my brother wasn't going to come anytime soon.

I would ask my mom when my brother was coming and she would sit me down. Sometimes she would cry, sometimes she would laugh, sometimes she wouldn't do much at all. Just explain to me how my brother was with us, but I couldn't see him for now.

I wasn't until I was in fifth grade and didn't ask for a couple of years when I asked her again. With tears in her eyes, she choked over the definition of a miscarriage. She explained that it was a terrible thing where God gave her a baby but later decided that it wasn't the right time.

Things change.

I like being an only child, but that change hurt. It hurt knowing what could have been, and nothing else would replace that forgone change. It wouldn't come back a year later like the seasons do, and it couldn't be given to me by putting it on my Christmas list. My head was filled with wonder about how it would feel to have another bed next to mine. A bed for someone I would love and hate, get into arguments with, and push around.

I've been thinking about the cyclical nature of our world lately. Things in nature change with the promise of returning. It's how the world works. It's how nature works. It seems like everything that keeps us alive comes in a circle. Water, geology, nature, and air. The Earth spins on an axis as it rotates around the sun. Even our bodies are meant to keep the cycle of nature going after we die.

Favorite seasons come and go. After they're gone, they're replaced by something else. Seasons fade in the same way that sunrises and sunsets fade. The way loves and lives fade. It's always taken for granted until the moment I realize I'm losing my grip on it. And, no matter how hard I try to alter the axis of the Earth, things change anyway.

But no matter how many days, seasons, or loves fade away, I always seem to be okay in the end. Now don't get me wrong, it sucks. But, just like the seasons, something always rises out of change. Spring and summer come and the days get longer. Eventually, the first leaf will drop in my yard and it will begin again.

But it breaks my heart because I see how water, nature, life, and our galaxy all move in circular motion. And I'm left to wonder why death can be such an unforgivingly straight line.