SIXTY-FOUR YEAR -OLD MAPLE LEAF

During World War II, while my Dad was in the Army, his mother wrote him letters on a nearly daily basis. She was a busy lady, with a large family to tend to, and yet every day she found the time to sit down and pen a letter to him. They were written on thin onion-skin paper, using a fountain pen. Nearly sixty-five years later her words are as clear and meaningful as they were back then. I treasure the chance to read about her day-to-day life...

I inherited a packet of these letters, and have been reading them slowly -- one every evening.

Tonight when I pulled out the contents of this evening's letter, out came a very golden, very flat maple leaf.

A sixty-four year old maple leaf that was chosen by my grandmother almost sixty-five years ago.

And it's beautiful.

It's flat and smooth. It's veins are so distinct. It's color so deep gold and little speckles of brown adorn it. It has a nice long stem...perfectly formed and intact.

I'm going to mat and frame this leaf....

It represents so much to me.

Reminds me that autums have come and gone sixty-five times since the September day she chose this little leaf.

She loved her son. Missed him. Wanted to put a little spot of "home" in her letter, so she sent him a golden leaf.

I wonder at that.

At the depth of her love for him. (very deep).

At her description of the cold, crisp day the day she was writing her letter.

I miss her. And I miss him.