By ANNIE TURNER

I often wish that life could be clearer in its sense of coming to a stop or beginning something new. As Anne Lamott often laments, “If I were in charge of the Western World, I would….” I would have an ending come to a full stop. Period. No dangling bits, no emotions that slop over, no untied ends. A neat package. And then, when something new comes into view, have it be clear and clean with definite parameters, crisp as a white sail against the horizon.
But no. And just to remind us of how sloppy God’s world is, we get Fall. In bits and pieces. Summer begins to feel “not-like-summer” but like “the-beginning-of-fall.” The leaves on the maple by our deck are starting to turn red in places; Joe Pye Weed is out and almost done with; asters send forth tentative purple flowers; the warblers migrate; and I watch the hummingbirds, knowing they will leave soon. Or, as my significant other said this morning, “Hey, bud, where’s your suitcase?”
School flyers have already infected and depressed the minds of countless children (but not their parents) since the first week in August. Let the shopping commence! Yellow school buses are seen parked on streets, waiting, like some vast bugs ready to devour children.
I confess to a sense of melancholy. I begin to remember my past and the past of my “children” (now 29 and 25). Who loved to pick up the phone and order glorious clothes for Char from Hanna Andersson? Not me. Who liked to visit the Lanesboro Mall for clothes for Ben and perhaps an action toy to soften the blow of school beginning? I suspect we picked up a Barbie as well, hopefully Barbie Veterinarian or Barbie Doctor.
I remember Halloween trick-or-treating, getting the kids dressed in their costumes. One year Ben made a marvelous aluminum devil mask, painting it a vivid red. It scared even me. Each fall I would pluck pumpkins from my garden and set them on our deck railing where they stayed, festive and cheery, until the first frost. Then I would set the vibrant mums on the house stairs, where they cheered me every morning.
At 71 I do relish our empty nest and ability to come and go as we please. But the ending of having “kids” living with us is a sweet/sad thing. I miss them. I miss the warblers. Soon I will mourn the hummingbirds until Rick will say, “Get over it already, they will come back.”
Yes, and then Spring will come in a laggard sort of way, giving us one blindingly-sunny warm day, followed by a late snowstorm that crushes my daffodils. I don’t know how we bear it, really. Jonah in the whale had nothing on us!
But then—I remember: our God is a God of beginnings and endings. The Bible is full of such things. I began, and so I shall end, or as my dearest aunt once said to me, “Annie, music has to come to an end.” So it shall. But somewhere not too far away, the music will start up again for another person, another flower, and another hummingbird.

– Annie Turner