By Jacquelyn Wheeler
It was late in autumn. The leaves were changing colors and falling from the trees. The air was cold and dry, and the sun began to rise later and set earlier every day.
One crisp morning, when most of the leaves had already dropped, one leaf was clinging to its branch. It was not ready to drop. “I don’t want to fall,” it said. “I don’t know what will happen when I do.”
The wind whistled through the empty branches. It sounded like it was whispering something. “No beginnings…no endings,” it seemed to say.
The leaf shivered, watching the last remaining leaves fall to the ground. The air was so cold now. The leaf was dry and brittle and could barely hang on. But still it was afraid.
It remembered the spring, when it had been a tender bud and the rain bounced off of it. It thought of summer, when it was a strong green leaf soaking up the sun and swaying in warm breezes at night. And it remembered how beautiful all the leaves had looked in early autumn when they began to change colors. But now all the leaves were gone, and the leaf felt sad. It was the last one left.
“No beginnings…no endings,” the wind whispered again. The leaf heard it clearly this time and wondered what it meant. It looked down at the leaves below. They were scattered all over the ground, some flitting around in the wind, some lying still, beginning to decompose and become part of the soil. The leaf felt very alone.
Finally, a strong gust of wind blew through the branches, and the leaf could hold on no longer. It let go of the tree. The wind cradled it gently as it fell slowly side to side, down to the earth, where at last it came to rest among the other leaves.
After a few moments, the leaf looked up at the bare branches of the tree. The tree looked so empty, but the leaf did not feel sad. It felt peaceful. The tree looked like it was asleep, and it looked right without any leaves on it. The leaf felt that it was finally where it should be. It no longer felt alone or afraid.
In the days that followed, the leaf relaxed completely as it was gently stirred by the wind, sometimes flying up a few feet above the ground, sometimes lying still. It felt peace as it began to crumble and become part of the soil. It felt happy as it broke down into nutrients in the soil, which mixed with rainwater to become food for the tree. And as the months passed, it felt bliss as the tree slowly sucked up the nutrients and sprouted tender new buds in the spring.
As the new buds soaked up the morning sun, they thought about the coming time when they would become leaves and stretch out away from their branches. As some of them wondered what it would feel like to be a leaf, they heard the wind whistling in the branches. It sounded like it was whispering something. “No beginnings…no endings,” it seemed to say.
