No Denying Winter is Coming

Vibrant yellow leaves swirled down and down until they landed around a distracted McQuade. He was raking and didn’t notice the new additions to his growing pile. He was taking the afternoon off to rake after visiting a friend that morning who was at home in hospice care.

McQuade had visited Justin and his wife Shannon earlier that morning. They had a wonderful time drinking coffee in the sunlit kitchen and reminiscing about college days. He’d known both of them for most of his adult life. He was Justin’s best man.  After several hours of pleasant chit chat, Justin got tired and Shannon put him to bed for a nap. That was the cue for McQuade to leave. Shannon broke down in tears at the door. McQuade hugged her. Again he said he would do anything for her and the girls. What else could he say?

Driving home, his mind elsewhere,  he almost drove through a stop sign and then a red light. It was good he didn’t have to go far. When he pulled into the yard, he decided raking leaves might be all he could handle at the moment. And it was such a beautiful day at least he’d be outside.

McQuade raked for a half-hour or so before he noticed the tomatoes.  He had forgotten all about the garden. Back in September, he harvested what he thought was the last of the tomatoes, then put the garden out of mind. But there were the tomatoes plants, still hanging on,  wildly overgrown and laden with quite a few green tomatoes.

Every year it was the same thing. The late crop  would come forth and not have time to ripen before the heavy frosts. It always seemed like such a waste.

He leaned his rake against the fenceand fumbled in his pocket for a pipe and tobacco. The pipe was a leaf raking tradition handed down by his father. As the wisps of smoke curled up from the newly lit bowl, there’s no denying winter is coming, he thought.

copyright 2017 Christopher Donahue

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