There is nothing so comforting as coming home in October. I am not concerned with the newly paved road, the "for sale" sign across the street that is gone, the new traffic light. My whole being craves what I have always known of home and of autumn: my eyes feast on the yellow tinge in the trees ready to shatter through the green, as route three and chlorophyll storages come to an end.
The new song learned on the piano, the tree that finally has apples, the bag of ripe avocados - my heart feasts on familiarity. The sun hangs just-so for longer than we deserve, and the kitchen timer on the stove beeps.
I was born in October. Yet, most especially in recent years, that day serves to remind me how grateful I am for the birth of my two most favorite people - my brothers.
My brothers, who like peanut butter and Nutella on mostly all things, who quote movies from beginning to end, and who stay up later than they should.
My brothers, who make sure I stop reading current events when they start to scare me, who expose me to rap music and the "Rocky Balboa" movies, and who make me braver than I am.
My brothers, who are sometimes quite messy, but then again, quite often so is life. Therefore, Will and Joe, if in some strange yet common turn of events you misplace your keys or your faith, remember what Luna Lovegood said (after we waited in line for the midnight premiere), “the things we lose always have a way of coming back to us in the end, if not always in a way we expect.” It is the very loss of what nature thinks sustains itself that creates the most endearing, and beautiful time of year.
Coming home in October, there is a simultaneous sense of things returning to a dormant state while preparing to burst in a splendid array of warm and unpredictable hues. My soul is at ease because the season of fall endures in my brothers.
