Reminiscence of Fall

Last night I sat on a plane from Chiang Mai headed for Bangkok.  My head ached, my stomach churned and my body would have felt better if I had been hit by a Mack truck.  Today, I called Bumrungrad Hospital home while I visited one doctor then another for completely unrelated medical problems.

Tonight I write to you from a sleepy little Baptist guest house at the end of a quiet road in a crowded and noisy Asian city.  A riverboat quietly drifts down a water canal not 20 feet from my window.  Maybe it was homesickness, maybe stomach sickness that drew me to glance back through pictures.  The picture above is one of my favorite memories of the last few years.

Last October, Jeff, Chloe, Ava and I bundled up and headed for the pumpkin patch in rural Oklahoma.  It's hard to remember what rural looks like after spending almost an entire year on an island with 8 times the population of Oklahoma crammed into an area of just two counties.

There is something mysterious and magical about fall- a whisper of a promise of good things to come. It's like a Braum's ice cream sundae. Halloween sits perched at the top like the cherry and is the first to be consumed.  Then Thanksgiving approaches and just like the last of the fudge beckoning from the bottom of the bowl to "eat me" we indulge in all manner of food and family cheer. The ice cream sandwiched between provides the substance to make memories.

In Thailand, there's no such thing as fall- just summer year round. In Taiwan there is a brief moment when the skies clear and the temperature drops reminiscent of that sweet season. It is fleeting and soon gives way to the rain and cold of the winter months but I can still feel it for a moment.

I don't have any profound life application for this post.  Sometimes it just feels good when you are lonely to share or write.  I get to do both.  Tomorrow I will spend the day again doing follow-up tests and then home again on Tuesday. Hopefully, the doctors will send me on my way with good news and a fistful of drugs to fix an ailing kidney.

In the meantime when that tell-tale crisp breeze signals the advent of fall, pause to revel in the beauty and then eat a Braum's ice cream sundae for me.