ANNIE MOURNS THE LAST WARM DAY

 

  Sometime around the first week in October Annie begins the mourning litany of "Annie's Last Things." Rick knows this well, giving a brief smile as I begin with:

--"This is the last day we shall eat lunch on the deck."

 

--"This is the last day for taking in the water feature from the garden."

--"This will be our last swim as the nights are getting colder."

 

--"This is the last drive with the sun roof open."

--"This is the last time I will wear shorts." 

--"This is the last time we walk up the road by the beaver pond with our dog."

And on and on and on. It is a damn wonder he still loves me! You could ask--What is the point of all these "last" markers? Here are a few thoughts:

--I don't want to be caught unexpectedly past the time for an observance, as in a sudden frost before all is tidied up in the garden.

--I like to feel in control of things, esp. in my life now I have had cancer. Talk about your unexpected event! 

--I like markers. 

--It feels as if I am collecting significant events in some kind of a seasonal box, beautifully decorated. 

 

--I want to be ahead of the last things whatever they may be.

--It is a form of almost cheerful mourning.

   When I was a kid, I imagined the 4 seasons as going around a long rectangle. On top was the long, happy summer with camp, cookouts, fireflies, and swimming. Then I would turn the corner on September (School!), ease down October with fabulous Candy Holiday at the end

, set the table for a big family Thanksgiving with my grandmothers, and turn the corner into December, the long, cold bottom of the rectangle. But not to worry as my bday was Dec. 10th, then came Christmas, and the fun of sliding with my two brothers and Dad, as well as skating. I loved the long, snowy winter, including Laura Ingalls Wilder's wonderful book which Mom read to me on their bed,

 both of us under a comforter as the book made us shiver. When we turned the corner around March I welcomed Spring with its warm breezes, trips to the woods out back where I built a small hut with my friend Meggie, and more, until we came to June, end of school, going to camp, and blissful summer.

  I like having seasonal memories locked inside with all of their smells of wind, rain, snow, earth, flowers, lilacs, and more. They ground me in a world which sometimes feels completely ungrounded.  They remind me of the happy child I was and how lucky I was to grow up in a stable family with two parents who loved each other and us. (This is not to say that there were some not grand times, but they fade in my memory.)

   So I continue to travel the scented rectangle of the 4 seasons, delighting in cherished memories, welcoming the times, making food which marks them (pumpkin butter anyone?),  and getting ready for the ("This is the last time") occasions, until the final season of The Last 

comes which I may be aware of or may not be. But that is OK, because then I shall slip into eternity which probably does not have seasons. But who knows?