October is beautiful

Ruby Hayes

— 2 min read
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Watercolor painting of a farmhouse kitchen table with writing paper and a pen, an empty chair on the far side

"So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day." — 2 Corinthians 4:16

Dear Earl,

It is October.

I have never liked the way the calendar turns on this one. September to October is not like any other month change for me, because September still feels like it belongs to you — you always said September was the best month on this property, and you were right, the light is right and the heat is gone and the garden is still giving, and a man could walk out to the barn at six in the morning and feel like the whole world had been made for that walk — and then October comes and your birthday is in it, and the color is in it, and the first frost is in it, and all of it is beautiful and none of it has you in it, and I have to decide again what to do with that.

Seven years. The bed is still too wide. The chair across from me is still empty. The barn is still yours.

Here is what I want to tell you.

The boy is in my class. Hannah's boy, Caleb. He is eight years old and he turns his whole head when somebody talks, and he does not know you at all, and he called me Miss Ruby, and I did not cry, and I want you to know that.

And your friend Henry came by last week and told me it was about that time to close the garden, and I said I knew, and we stood at the fence and did not say anything else, and he went on to town, and I want you to know that too.

And Ray called tonight and he found a picture of Mama's kitchen, the one on Franklin Street, and you sat at that table a hundred times and she fed you and you ate everything and told her it was the best you ever had, which was a lie and the kindest one, and I want you to know I remember that too.

I am not losing heart. Paul says our outer nature wastes away and our inner nature is renewed, and I believe him, mostly, on the mornings I can get past the chair. Your birthday is in two weeks and I will go to the cemetery and bring something, and I will stand there and not know what to say, the same way I have not known what to say the last six times, and then I will come home and feed Biscuit and drink the coffee and go on.

That is the report from here. The garden is almost done. The boy is in the chair. October is beautiful.

With love,
Ruby

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.