Fall

Patrick was going to rake the millions of leaves that fell in front of the house, but my mom apparently did it before we got home from work. It must've taken quite some time to assemble the giant pile that was formed near the curb. By the time she was finished, it seemed like the tree discarded another year's worth of leaves.

Later today, my mom told me that she was looking out the window and saw the kids next door having a jolly good time throwing her leaves up in the air and scooping piles of them to dump on their own lawn. (They don't have a tree.)

So my mom goes outside to talk to them. I'm thinking, "Yeah. You gave them the bizness for messin' up your hard work, right?"

But instead she tells me she raked up a small pile on their lawn so they could play with them. And when the kids said, 'Your pile is bigger than our pile,' she gave them some more leaves. When she went inside, the kids spent half the afternoon shoveling leaves from my mom's pile onto their lawn and then throwing them up in the air. As she told the story, she laughed.

I said, "You weren't mad they messed up your big pile?"

And she said, "No. Remember what fun you guys used to have jumping in the leaves? You had the best time."

I thought about the excitement of when we used to pile the leaves under our big tree in the backyard on Radcliffe. We would perch on the sturdiest branch above the pile and take big dives into the soft, tall mounds below.

And then I thought about my mom's brilliant strategy. She made the kids next door happy and created a fun memory for them while keeping our lawn pretty clean. Not bad, Mom. Not bad.