Summer came back here for three days. It brought us temperatures aiming towards 80 in the afternoon, hanging around the upper 70s till the sun goes down, when temperatures plunge. Today I hung up a basketful of laundry on the outside lines, which I thought was over for the season several weeks ago, and everything was dry by 4 pm, including jeans.

For the second day in a row, rather than sitting in the morning and evening as I usually do, I sat in a chair by Kwan-yin in the afternoon, soaking in the warmth. You can tell that the sun is not as close to us as it usually is in summer, we’re drawing farther and farther away from each other, but it seems to be giving us some farewell hugs and kisses.

Not 3-minute hugs like in the (now) famous New Zealand airport that limited hugs to 3 minutes in the drop-off area, but long, lazy hugs, like a lover refusing to leave. An airport spokesman explained their sign, saying that couples actually make out in the drop-off area, obstructing traffic. I think the sun has been making out with us here, not wishing to let us go.

Tomorrow temperatures drop 15 degrees Fahrenheit. It will still be nice, dry, autumn days, but not the summery days we’ve had till now.

I sat by Kwan-yin, Henry dropping acorns on my lap to throw for him, and right in front of me, some 15 feet away, were two more red-cushioned chairs looking across the yard past the stony path towards our gazebo that has fallen into disuse, and to the trees behind it concealing the sharp drop towards the half-dry Sawmill River below (we’re not getting rain). An occasional breeze, even a soft one, would shower yellow, orange, and red leaves. They fall on Kwan-yin; at times I sweep them away and at times I leave them alone. They also fall on me.

I remembered how Bernie and I would sit on those two chairs on nice days in the 3 years between his stroke and his death. We would talk a bit, not much, and then fall into silence.

I don’t remember Bernie admiring the New England landscape that much before the stroke. He always had his computer in front of him, a cigar in one hand. He was too dynamic to admire the trees all that much, to plunge into the play between sunlight and shadow. His mind gushed and babbled ideas, plans, and observations.

After his stroke he went into deep silence very often.

“What are you thinking, Bernie?” I’d inquire a little anxiously. Was he thinking about his disability, the changes in his mind, how much he now had to depend on others, the monotonous exercises he did day after day just to stay mobile? I can be quite a drama queen in my efforts at empathy, imagining all kinds of things that people may or may not wish to share aloud. He’d shake his head as if to say, he wasn’t thinking. Sometimes we’d hold hands as both rested on the arm of his chair.

My latest definition of impermanence is: If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

I keep in mind words written by Maria Popova in her terrific Marginalian blog: Every loss reveals what we are made of–an affirmation of the value of a breakdown?

She evokes the leaves, how they haven’t put on new colors for fall, the colors were always there. Only when the leaves cease the process of photosynthesis (due to the cooling weather) the green disappears and finally reveals what’s been underneath all the time: yellow, orange, red, and all combinations thereof. The leaves are falling apart, and in the process reveal what they’re made of.

November 4, some 10 days from now, will mark six years since Bernie died. A big loss, not just of husband but also teacher. What has the loss revealed about me? What disintegrated? What new colors became visible? When I had no one to complement anymore, did anything fall off due to lack of use?

Some people say I’ve grown mellower. Perhaps. Sharing a life with him often meant reminding him that another full-bodied human being was in the house, not a shadow or outline in backdrop. Since his death I no longer have to emphasize my presence and all the attendant needs and wishes. There’s no struggle for place and time. There’s no one to verbally joust and wrestle with because, let’s face it, just one of us survived when the bell rang. And that person did not hold any hands aloft, that person didn’t stop crying for some 3-1/2 years.

The ensuing six years have been very good, I just wish they weren’t Bernie-less.

What’s revealed when he’s gone? If no new colors emerge, does character? There’s more hair because I cut it less frequently. The bed is made the same way, the three altars in the living room remain. The sun sets the same way, bringing darkness till the morning, when I open my eyes and see more leaves that have shed their green and revealed who they were when they were finally ripened, before falling to the ground.

What is left for me to reveal now? I’d like to see it before I, too, fall away.