Year of Firsts - Fall

     Fall is upon us here in the United States. It is my absolute favorite time: The weather becomes milder, the leaves begin to change color, the smells in the air become more robust, and the food... oh the food... becomes more hearty. I go nuts decorating for fall. Almost as nuts as I go for Christmas haha! But this year, things feel different. 
    Every year when I was a kid, my dad and I would go nuts decorating outside for Halloween. Especially with decorating pumpkins. One year after we moved to the house my mom is in now, Dad, Papa, and I went crazy decorating pumpkins. We carved so many to set out front. I've got so many good memories from that time... and yes I do remember doing it.

October 30, 1989
Eureka, Missouri

    As you can see, had such a great time doing it. And they turned out great! Unfortunately that year, we also had vandals come and destroy some of the pumpkins. I remember the police coming to the door late one night to inform us that some of our pumpkins had been smashed by some teenagers. Oh well, at least we got pictures of them before they did that!
    I remember one year, Dad had a grand idea to put a stuffed scarecrow sitting in the front yard with a pumpkin as a head. He put the head sitting next to him like it had been severed and we stuffed an old shirt and some old pants with a bunch of leaves. We sure had enough to go around. Then the final touch was a sign we painted that said, "Hi Mom!" It was the greatest thing we ever created. Unfortunately, I have yet to find pictures of it. But when we were cleaning out one of the sheds, we found the sign that said, "Hi Mom!" hidden in the back. Brought back so many good memories.
    One of my favorite things about fall was the leaves. And we had so many of them, as you can see from the pictures above. I would help rake them up just to jump in them. But dad would prefer to just run over them with the lawnmower and pick them up. He would at least let me have some time to play (some of the time) before he did that. One of my absolute favorite pictures is one that was taken of me with the neighbor kids. Where we were buried in the leaves and we looked like we only had heads. Such a great picture.

abt 1992

Eureka, Missouri

    *sigh* The first fall without Dad. It's going to be rough. I've been looking forward to Fall cautiously knowing I'm going to have memories creeping up that are going to be hard to deal with. But it's part of the grief process. As the holidays approach, I will probably be writing more posts about what I'm going through. Please have patience with me. This has been a great outlet for me to deal with my grief. 

Are you ready for Fall??