As season within a season

On October 5th, my dear friend, JaLaine, gave me a jar full of leaves.  It was a beautiful jar and the color of the leaves were vibrant.  She knows about my love of Fall and I thought it was a beautiful gift.

Then she told me a story of the leaves...last Fall, her son, Logan, needed some Fall leaves for a school project.  They went and gathered up many leaves...more than they needed for the project, and took them home. She wasn't sure what to do with them at the time, so she decided to try freezing them to see if they could be preserved.  (I thought this was quite a genius idea).

Fall came and went.  Eli came....and went.  Her daughter, Laena, came....and went.  She never could have known how special these leaves would be when she was gathering them up last Fall.  When she was cleaning out her freezer several weeks ago, she realized she had forgotten all about them.  She had kept a piece of the actual season of our children without realizing the true purpose of the leaves at the time she had preserved them.

Leaves are one of my favorite symbols of Fall.  They symbolize a life that is mature and rich and colorful.  There is a hint of death in a colored leaf, but it is so beautiful that a green leaf clinging tightly to a tree branch doesn't compete with the beauty of a leaf that is maturing and changing, and yes...dying.

I feel like Eli's life was much like one of these leaves; budding in the spring and changing as quickly as the seasons to something beautiful and rich and complete in the Fall.  We experienced so much while he was here...truly a lifetime.

I'm so grateful that JaLaine gave me a piece of Eli's season...a season within a season.