Autumn is the cusp of darkness
when the days grow shorter
and the trees begin letting go.

But it isn’t winter yet.

Perhaps grief is like that.

I have lost so many.
Some far too young.
Some who should still be
sending ridiculous emails,
making me laugh,
walking through the world
as if they had all the time in it.

Sometimes I look around
and feel the unfairness of it.
A little bitter.
A little angry.

Because life keeps moving
when some people should still be here.

So I keep the evidence.

Photographs.
Emails.
Old messages.
Little pieces of people
that somehow survived
when they didn’t.

And then, without warning,
a ghost says hello.

A song.
A smell.
A date on the calendar.
A stupid joke I haven’t thought about in years.

And there they are.

For one beautiful, brutal moment,
they are alive again in my mind.

And I am sad.

Then I continue.

Because that is what we do.

Grief never really goes away.
We simply learn to live around it,
etching a new border
a little farther out
as time passes.

The loss remains.

So does the love.

And perhaps that is why
autumn doesn’t frighten me.

It reminds me that letting go
is not the same as disappearing.

Some things fall away.

Some things stay.

And some ghosts
still know exactly
how to find us.