“Reach out. Touch the leaves. Feel the colors as they burn. In the wild of changing things ask, “what am I meant to learn?”
-Morgan Harper Nichols
I didn’t wear mascara yesterday.
I knew it was useless, because whatever was on my eyes would be falling down my cheeks in black sloppy stains just a few hours later.
I used to try, with all my might, to hold back the tears when my brother went away- I’d swallow and swallow until my throat burned, biting my lip, clenching my fists, trying so desperately to be brave for him.
I know now, that it’s alright to cry when the people you love leave you.
I know now, that it is brave to show them how much you care.
October 1st is usually a happy day, as it’s the beginning of my favorite month. Yesterday though, was different.
Yesterday my brother left me, after we’d spent the most time we’d spent together in over 6 years. Maybe the longest time we’ll ever spend together again.
It felt, at first, like any other time, like he was a guest in our house to entertain, a visitor, just passing through. At the end though, it felt like old times.
It felt like home.
After we said goodbye, I rode my bike down church street, my face to the sky as the tears trickled down. I noticed that the green leaves of the maple trees are beginning to bleed away. Later that night, I noticed that the sun hid away so much sooner than she had in August.
And now as I sit here, drinking my coffee, reminiscing and looking ahead, I notice, so wonderfully and yet painfully, that my own life, my own priorities and plans, are shifting from what they’ve been before.
I sit here and I realize, like the bleeding leaves of Autumn,
change feels like dying, because to change-
you must die.
Leaves change their colors only when the old ones fade away. The moon and the stars come to replace the sun each night, as she dies in a sea of apricot clouds. We call it the changing of the seasons when the days get shorter and the air gets colder, but really it’s the dying of one season and the birth of another.
Change is normal. It is natural. I even anticipate and celebrate it, as I anticipate and celebrate the changing of the seasons. But that doesn’t negate the fact that it is difficult. Uncomfortable. So, so hard.
And yet, it can be joyous too. I think of the words of Paul and know this.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation: The old has gone, the new has come!” -1 Corinthians 1:17
I remember someone once saying, “Thy kingdom come, means my kingdom go.” I hear the words of my Father who says to save my life, I must lose it, to follow him, I must take up a cross.
And I realize that this heaviness in my heart, when I say goodbye to the ones I love, when I leave an old thing for a new one, when I see myself changing from the bright eyed girl of 17 I was 4 years ago…. it will always be like this. Change and growth will be painful, for the new to come, the old must go.
Right now I am looking in front of me at a picture of my brother. My brother, my rock, my friend…holding me in his arms with a smirk on his face as he kisses me on the cheek. I have never known a love so pure, so safe and so kind as the love my brother has for me, his little sister.
I feel the ache, deep in my heart, of the change of letting go, of the change of accepting a life without the ones I love. Of not only accepting it, but surrendering it to my Father with wide open hands and a joyful heart. I’ve felt the ache in my heart a million times before and I’ve cursed myself for still feeling it, so many years later.
Today however, I don’t curse it. I realize that pain is a preface to growth.
“There are far better things ahead, than any we leave behind.”
-C.S. Lewis
I smile as I watch the sun rise, a reminder that today is a new day, that yesterday is gone and tomorrow is in reach. The pain still lacing my heart is interwoven with a joy I can’t express. Like the maple trees outside, I know my leaves are changing too. I know one season of my life is passing away, awaiting the next one to be born. And I am thankful for the pain, for I ache to be changed. I ache for the old Emily to die.
I am full of hope. I am full of anticipation.
I hope with all my heart that my Autumn comes soon.
“Pain is alive in a broken heart -the past never does go away,
We were born to love and we’re born to pay, the price for our mistakes.
Grace, she comes with a heavy load, memories, they can’t be erased-
Like a pill I swallow, he makes me well, but leaves an awful taste
Oh, I know this song won’t do, enough to prove my love to you
In my heart you’ll always know- there is a place only love can go
There is a place only you can go.”
-Needtobreathe
