’Twas Christmas Day and all through the house not a creature was stirring, least of all, me or my spouse.

We were exhausted. On Christmas Eve, we had hosted dinner for half of our family, the three adults and four children who live nearby.

The big kids helped get the food on the table while the little kids chased my husband around the living room.

Then we took our seats at the table and bowed our heads as my daughter led us in giving thanks for the gifts of family and food and Christmas.

Next came the “crackers”—party favors that popped open with a loud POP! and scattered tiny toys across the table. It’s an English tradition my husband picked up when he lived in London. (I think it’s fun, but where I grew up, “cracker” has a different connotation.)

Dinner included beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, veggies, salad and rolls; and for dessert, tiramisu and bakery-made Christmas cookies. My husband said I outdid myself. Yes, he is a very smart man.

After dinner, I read aloud the Christmas story from the Gospel of Luke, and I loved watching the faces of young and old alike light up with joy at its meaning.

Then we opened gifts. It took work, but we made the best of it. Here’s an odd thing about me and Christmas. I never seem to remember gifts I’m given. I just recall smiles and laughter and hugs from loved ones who are with me in person or memory. For me, those are the real gifts.

As our family drove away, my husband and I stood out front waving goodbye. Then we came inside and watched “Elf.”

Christmas Day was quiet. We slept late, then spent time on the phone and FaceTime with loved ones near and far. Finally, that night, as we sat down to a supper of leftovers, we looked at each other over a wilted centerpiece, lifted our glasses and mumbled, “Cheers.”

Then we just ate. No talking. No laughing. No smiles. It was not what you’d call merry. When we finished, I said, “You want a Christmas cookie?”

He said “sure,” and I went to fetch the few that were left. Meanwhile, he found a couple of the cracker toys—little, plastic wind-up Santas—hiding by the centerpiece. And when I came back, he wound them up and sent them waddling across the table at me. So I wound them up and fired them back at him.

Then, for a while, we talked and laughed, two people of a certain age, eating Christmas cookies and sending wind-up Santas waddling back and forth across the table at each other.

His Santa was faster. But mine liked to spin and twirl.

I wish you could’ve seen us.

Life is made of moments.

Some are big, like falling in love, or giving birth, or hosting a houseful of loved ones for Christmas dinner.

Others are small, like a smile from a stranger you pass on the street, or a pat on the back when you need it, or a little plastic Santa waddling at you across a table.

Big and small, we need them all to cherish and to remember and to make us feel truly alive.

Looking back on 2021, the second year of the pandemic, I remember many wonderful moments—notably, the birth of my granddaughter, Leilani.

But I often felt I had to look harder to find them. To see the smile behind the mask. To sense the warmth in social distancing. To feel the kisses my grandson Jonah gave me on FaceTime.

I don’t want to have to look hard for moments, big or small. I want to see them everywhere, even with my eyes closed.

So for 2022, I have two wishes for us all: First, to be done with the pandemic in every possible way; and second, to be blessed with countless great moments, big and small and full of life.

What will matter most in the year ahead, as it did in the past, is not so much what it will bring, but what we choose to make of it. Here’s to making it the best.

This story takes place around Christmas, but it tells a truth that is true all year ‘round.
I’ve told it before in various versions. Some of you were kind enough, thank you, to ask me to reprint it from a column I wrote years ago. That would require finding it. And I have trouble finding my own shoes.
So I’m going to retell it from memory, which is always an adventure, because every good story has a mind of its own. You never know at the start where it will lead or how it might end.
This one starts at a picnic on the Fourth of July. I was big, 8 years old. My brothers were small, 4 and 3. Little did we know what lay ahead.
My stepfather, in my eyes, was strong and solid as the trunk of a hickory tree. He earned just enough to keep us sheltered and fed by standing eight hours a day on his big flat feet running a loom at a textile mill.
That summer at the company picnic—when he lost his footing in the Tug-of-War and slid downhill like a jack-knifed big-rig—he also lost his job.
I learned this from my mother, who said, as she watched him fall, “Lord help us! If he can’t walk, he can’t work! And if he can’t work, we can’t eat!”
He was on crutches and out of work for six months. Somehow we still managed to eat.
That December, my mother announced that Santa might be running a bit late.
“How late?” I asked.
“Maybe spring,” she said.
They had ordered a few gifts on credit from a catalog, she explained, but the shipment might not arrive in time.
“It will still be Christmas,” she said, “even without Santa.”
I tried to picture it, Christmas minus Santa. I couldn’t see it.
The next day, some good and caring people from our church came to our door with a ham, a tin of cookies and a tiny Douglas fir trimmed with paper birds.
My stepfather hid in the kitchen. My mother thanked them for their kindness, but forgot to offer them coffee.
After they left, she handed me a cookie. “Life,” she said, “is a bank. Sometimes you put in. Other times you take out. Either way, it’s all the same bank.”
Then she added: “You need to remember how hard it is to receive,” she said, “because someday you’ll do the giving.”
Every day that last week before Christmas, my stepfather would shove his crutches in his ’49 Ford and drive to the depot to wait for the train. I would wait on the porch steps praying.
And every day he’d come back shaking his head, looking grim.
Finally, on Christmas Eve, he limped into the living room holding a box under one arm.
“Merry Christmas,” he muttered, dropping the box on the floor by the little Douglas fir. It was a case of tangerines.
We ate them all. They were good. But that night, for the first time, they tasted like Christmas. And for me, they always will.
I’ve seen a lot of Christmases since then, and received far more than my share of gifts. I’ve also done a little giving and learned my mother was right. Giving is easy. Taking is hard.
In this season of giving, and through the coming year, I hope we’ll all know the joy giving to family and friends and strangers in need. But I also hope we’ll be willing to accept a little help, just to keep us humble.
When you find yourself in need, remember: Sometimes we give. Other times we take. And one day, you will do the giving.
You don’t need to send me a Christmas card or New Year’s greeting (P.O. Box 922, Carmel Valley CA 93924) unless, of course, you really want to.
May your stocking be filled, not just at Christmas, but every morning. And in the toe, may you always find a tangerine.

Early in December, I start watching for my most wanted and needed gift. I never know what it will be, until it drops in my lap like a feather falling from heaven. When I see it, I always smile and shake my head.

The first Christmas I recall, I was almost 4 years old. My parents were divorced. I lived with my mother and missed my dad.

Christmas Eve, as she put me to bed, I said, “Mama, can I see my daddy for Christmas?”

“Not for Christmas,” she said, “but maybe soon. Go to sleep.”

I didn’t sleep. A knock at the door sent my heart flying. But it wasn’t my dad. It was the man my mother hoped to marry.

They went in the kitchen for cofffee. I fell asleep, but awoke a bit later to hear my mother arguing with someone at the door. Then she went in the kitchen and said to her friend, “It’s him. He’s putting together a toy for her. He won’t be long.”

Him? Santa? I tiptoed to the living room. And there on the floor—assembling the doll house of my dreams—was my dad!

I didn’t want to spoil the surprise. So I smiled, shook my head and went back to bed. I loved that doll house. But what I most wanted and needed was to see my dad for one moment and know he was thinking of me.

A week later, when I went to visit him and his folks on their farm, I said, “I saw you fixin’ my doll house Christmas Eve.”

“I saw you, too,” he said, then added with a wink, “and I stole that doll house off Santa’s sled.”

I could tell you stories about every Christmas I’ve been given a most wanted and needed gift. But we aren’t getting younger, so I’ll fast forward to this year.

My sister and brother and I are the oldest survivors of our family. They live in South Carolina. I live in California. We try to keep in touch by phone.

Bobbie recently moved to an assisted living facility. And Joe, who is totally blind and severely impaired by cerebral palsy, lives alone in public housing. Sending them gifts has never been easy, and it seems it’s getting harder.

The only gift Bobbie says she wants is a visit. Or candy. Due to Covid, I can’t visit her. So I sent her a box of candy and a small Christmas tree. I hope by some miracle they will reach her.

Joe is even harder. In recent years, most packages I’ve sent to him were stolen from his porch. Gift certificates and personal checks vanish from his mail box. Even shipments that require his signature don’t always work. Joe moves like a drunken snail with a walker. By the time he gets to the door, the carrier is gone.

“Don’t worry, Sister,” he says. “You don’t need to send me anything. I know you love me.”

It’s hard to picture my brother getting nothing for Christmas. But I couldn’t find a solution.

Then I called Bobbie and found her in rare high spirits.

“Martha came to see me!” she said, “and, bless her heart, she brought me all these treats!”

Martha is my forever friend. We grew up together and have stayed close, despite living miles apart. We don’t talk often, but when we do, it’s hard to say goodbye. When I phoned to thank her for visiting Bobbie, we spent a good hour catching up.

Finally, I said, “Thank you for visiting my sister. It meant more to me than it did to her. And she loved it. Especially the treats.”

Martha laughed. “I will do anything for you. I want to help. What can I do for Joe?”

Suddenly, there it was—my most wanted, most needed gift. I smiled and shook my head.

So I’ll send Joe’s gift to Martha. She’ll drive 30 miles in any kind of weather and maybe get lost looking for his place, but she’ll make sure he gets it.

Kindness is a gift any time of year. But it is especially wanted and needed at Christmas.

I wish you much kindness this Chistmas and always. I hope you get lots of it and give it all away.

And I pray you’ll be blessed, as I am, with a friend like Martha, whose kindness to you and to those you love will keep you smiling and shaking your head.

Tomorrow, my husband and I hope to get a Christmas tree. We will decorate it with a flock of fake red birds, some snowflakes that my grandmother crocheted long ago, and a few tacky, but treasured, ornaments.

For me, it doesn’t take much to make Christmas wonderful. I don’t need gifts. I’d rather give them. And I surely don’t need treats. Except snickerdoodles that my husband makes.

Basically, to celebrate, I need just a few things: Family and friends. Movies (“Elf” and “Love Actually.”) Music (“O Holy Night” and “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”) A Christmas tree. And a candlelight service to remind me that I’m celebrating the gift of a child, who was born in a barn to save the world.

That’s about it. Today I baked cookies, but not for Christmas. They’re an everyday kind I call “The All-Time Easiest and Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever.”

I make them often. More often than I should. My grandkids love them. Even Wiley, who’s a cookie connoisseur. Once, when I gave him one made of oatmeal, Wiley said, “Nana, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this doesn’t look like a cookie.”

OK, I’ll give you the recipe for my peanut butter cookies. I’ve posted it before, but if I don’t do it now, I’ll get a ton of requests. (Readers like to read, but they really love to eat.) Here it is:

Combine one cup of peanut butter with one cup of sugar and an egg. No flour. Mix well. Spoon onto a greased pan to form 12 cookies. Flatten with a fork. Sprinkle with salt. Bake at 350 for 8-10 minutes. Cool, and try not to eat them all at once.

I gave most of the ones I made today to my husband and two of his buddies who are having fun playing music in our garage.

Listen. Can you hear them? I can. They sound good. The cookies probably help.

I like those guys a lot. I especially like what they mean to my husband. They’ve been his friends and fellow musicians for years. Making music is their way to spend time together. It’s like a book club without the books.

Last week, I spoke at a luncheon for a group of women who’ve been meeting monthly for more than 30 years to talk about books and life. During the pandemic, they began meeting only online. The luncheon was their first in-person meeting in almost two years.

I wish you could’ve been there. It felt like a family reunion.

One of things I love best about Christmas is the way it brings us together with family and friends and even with strangers, who smile as we pass on the street, and we smile back and wish each other, “Merry Christmas!”

On his first Christmas album, Andy Williams sang what would become a classic, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.”

It was 1963, a year much like the present one, when violence and conflict threatened to tear our lives and our nation apart.

U.S. military involvement in Vietnam was escalating. That August, more than 200,000 people marched on Washington, D.C., in support of civil rights and heard the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. And on Nov. 22, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Some years, more than others, we need Christmas to be the most wonderful time of the year.

A time that’s filled with family, friends, music and laughter, and candlelight services to remind us of why we are celebrating.

A time that makes us thankful for all we have, and happy to help those who have less.

A time that brings us together, with all our many differences, in peace and hope and joy.

Here’s wishing us all the kind of Christmas we need—a most wonderful time of the year.

Yes, the cookie recipe is your gift.

(NOTE: I’m taking this week off to recover from Thanksgiving. The following column, a reader favorite, was first published in 1993.)

My brother had a driving passion for cars. So to speak. Fords in particular. He was especially fond of speed.

It was enough to make my mother fear that he was crazy. But she feared that about all of us, especially about herself.

When Joe was just a little boy, he would often say to me, “Sister, when I get old enough to get my license and drive my own car, I will fly so fast the angels will run and hide their wings.”

Then he’d grin real big, picturing in his mind exactly how fine it would be.

I could have told him it would never happen. No matter how old he got, he would never get a license, never drive a car. But I didn’t tell him that.

Joe was born blind. He couldn’t see his own face in a magnifying mirror. But he could dream like nobody’s business.

I had dreams of my own, things I hoped for, knowing I might never see them come true. What were the odds I’d get to go to college? Or earn my living as a writer? Or visit strange, foreign lands like California of All Places?

I would bet more money on my blind brother’s chances of getting to drive at the Indy 500.

I didn’t want to be the one to dim Joe’s dreams. Life would do that for him, soon enough. Until then, didn’t he deserve a few happy anticipations?

Joe had trouble not just with his eyes, but with his legs. He was born premature, suffered from cerebral palsy and didn’t walk at all until he was 5.

That’s when he got his first “car,” a red Radio Flyer tricycle that he called his ’49 Ford. He couldn’t pedal it, so he would push it, one hand on the seat, the other on the handlebars, driving daylight to dark, all around the yard and often into ditches, anywhere his dreams and determination might lead.

Come bad weather, if our mother threw a fit big enough to make him stay inside, Joe would drive his other “Ford,” a green, overstuffed armchair. It had a few miles on it, he said, but it ran fine if you knew how to drive it which, of course, he did.

Growing up is a tug of war between disappointment and surprise, a reconciliation of dreams and reality. By the time Joe was 12, I think he knew he would never get a license. As with other hard facts of life, he seemed to accept it without question or bitterness, as if it were nothing more than a card drawn at random from a deck.

One hot summer day when he was 16, Joe went tapping out the driveway with his cane, tap, tap, and tapped into my stepfather’s ’49 Ford. He ran his hand along the hood, felt the heat of the metal, opened the door and climbed behind the wheel.

He looked good.

Rummaging under the seat, he discovered a six-pack of Budweiser. That beer was so hot, he would say later, it scalded the roof of his mouth. Even so, he drained all six cans.

Then he felt along the steering column, found the keys in the ignition, shouted, “Hooweeee!” and fired it up.

To my grave, I’ll regret that I wasn’t there to see it. By then, I was out of college, off in California of All Places, earning my living as a writer.

I have heard various versions of this story, depending on the teller. They all boil down to this:

The Ford’s engine roared. My mother fainted. My stepfather nearly broke his neck running out the door.

And my brother, after a moment of purest bliss, threw up on the dashboard. And the front seat. And the back.

Fortunately, for all concerned, the Ford was up on blocks. It never moved an inch.

But to this day, Joe still swears that when he found those keys and fired that old engine up, he heard the angels up in Heaven running to hide their wings.

It’s not often someone asks for my advice. Especially someone half my age. I wanted to help her. But I didn’t dare risk saying anything that might cause her to make a serious mistake.

In my experience, asking for directions can either get you where you want to go or send you down a dead end road.

But asking for advice doesn’t always mean someone wants to be told what to do. Sometimes they just want you to listen and let them untangle all the chaos in their head and their heart.

“Tell me about it,” I said.

She smiled and stared off into space, as if seeing something that made her happy.

“All my life,” she said, “I have wanted to own my own business. I’ve always worked hard for others. I won’t be young forever. I’d like to work hard for myself, while I can.”

For several years, she has stood at the counter of a small business, selling ice cream and other snacks. She loves talking with customers, especially the children. She’s good at the job and likes to believe that what she does makes people happy.

Her boss comes into the shop to help at times, but he has other businesses to oversee and mostly lets her run the place alone. He’s a good man, she said, trustworthy and fair.

Finally, she took a deep breath and cut to the chase: “He’s offering to make me a partner!”

The deal sounded simple. She would pay her boss a sum of money. It would take all of what she’s been saving for years, but she thinks it would be worth it.

In return, she said, she would be co-owner of the business. They had discussed all the details, and if she agreed, they would put it all in writing. She would still run the counter, but take her share of the income.

Best of all, she said, she hoped that in time she could earn back her investment and save enough money so that someday, when her boss retires, she could buy his half of the place and make her lifelong dream come true.

When she said that, her face lit up like a child’s at Christmas, and her eyes filled with tears.

I wish you could’ve seen her.

I smiled, too, and gave her a hug. Then, for a moment, my mind filled with memories of my own dreams that came true.

My dream of going to college came true with a scholarship.

Then I dreamed of seeing California, and my aunt and uncle, who lived near San Francisco, invited me to visit. So I flew out to spend a week, stayed with them for a year and married my uncle’s friend.

I dreamed of being a mother, though I didn’t know a lot about how to care for a child. Then I had three children—the children of my dreams—who would teach me more than I wanted to know.

Some dreams come true even if we don’t know we’re dreaming them. I never dreamed I’d get to work as a writer. But I got hired by a newspaper, though I had no experience, and ended up with a “dream job” writing a column.

For a while, after my husband died, I couldn’t bring myself to dream of a life without him. But I had family and friends and readers who dreamed it for me.

Soon, even though I grieved for my husband, I began moving forward with my life. In time, I married a man who makes me watch sunsets and does my laundry. Then I dreamed of being a nana. And in 10 years, we had nine grandchildren. Talk about a dream come true.

I didn’t tell my young friend what she should do. Instead, I listened and asked questions. It’s often better to let someone pour out their heart, than to put your own words in their mouth.

I told her I believe in her and want her to believe in herself. It’s her decision to make. And she will make the right choice.

Meanwhile, I’m praying her dream will come true, if not now, then some day soon.

I’ll be dreaming it with her.

Today I am getting an early start on my Thanksgiving tradition of writing a list of things for which I’m thankful. It’s a long list. The older I get, it keeps getting longer.

I started the tradition when I was 8, at the suggestion of my Sunday school teacher, Mrs. Farrar, a lovely woman I greatly admired. I hoped to be just like her someday. And I still do.

The length of the list varies depending on how much time and thought I give it. Gratitude is like a well-tended crop. It needs time and care to grow.

I’m sorry to admit this, but there were a few years when I didn’t keep the tradition. I’d get distracted somehow (I do that a lot) and forget all about the list. I meant well, but sometimes meaning well is not enough.

Then I’d remember it suddenly at the last minute—say, on Thanksgiving Day, with a houseful of hungry people, when I was taking the turkey out of the oven and trying to recall if I owned a carving knife, and if so, where exactly did I put it?

So instead of making a written list, I’d make a quick mental note to do it later, after dinner was done, the kitchen was clean and my family was snoring in a turkey coma. Then I’d fall into bed and forget all about it until the next Thanksgiving.

That’s not to say I didn’t give thanks for a year. I give thanks every day. I bet you do, too. With so much to be thankful for, how can we not? But I only do a written list at Thanksgiving—if I don’t get distracted and forget. I wish I had saved all those lists. No doubt, they included things I’m always thankful for: Family and friends, health and happiness, God’s abundant grace and peace and joy.

But they might’ve included a few more details such as, “I’m thankful I didn’t drown when I tried to swim across that lake and was too proud to yell for help.” Or “I’m thankful my brother forgave me and didn’t bleed to death when I tripped him on the barbed wire fence.” Or “I’m thankful I didn’t go to that alligator farm in Florida, and marry What’s His Name.”

Anyhow. Here’s a gift I’d like to share with you. My grandson, Wiley, in third grade, recently wrote the following essay:

“Someday I will be a professional basketball player and make 1,000 shots in a row. Someday I will be an artist and paint all my favorite things. Someday I will be the president of the U.S. and live in the White House. But today, I have to clean my room.”

Wiley’s delightful essay has inspired me to tell you this:

Someday I will be a better person, just like Mrs. Farrar. Someday I’ll own a carving knife and never forget where I put it. Someday I’ll spend more time on the people and things I love, and less time being distracted.

But today I have to stop and take time to be thankful. And put it in writing. Here goes:

I’m thankful, as always, for family and friends, health and happiness and God’s abundant grace and peace and joy.

I’m thankful my husband and I can celebrate Thanksgiving, once again, with most of our children and grandchildren and a few special friends.

I’m thankful for far more than I could ever fit in a column. For the chance to write my stories. For editors who publish them. And for readers, like you, who read them and tell me that my stories are your stories, too.

This Thanksgiving, I will set four tables: Three in my daughter’s dining room (she’s hosting, bless her.) And one “big table” in my heart for family and friends, living or long departed, who will be with us in spirit only, but never forgotten.

I’ll set a place for you at that “big table.” Maybe you’ll set one for me. Here’s wishing us all a year of true gratitude and many more Thanksgivings to come.

Lately, I find myself staring at a face in the mirror and asking:

1. Who are you?

2. Why do you look like that?

3. What have you done with the woman I used to be?

Here are my usual answers:

1. I am the same person I’ve always been, just a bit older, and due to the pandemic, maybe a few pounds heavier.

2. I look this way because I have a white stripe on my head that makes me look like a skunk. At the start of the pandemic, I tried to go totally gray, but couldn’t abide the stripe. So I keep coloring. And the stripe keeps coming back.

3. I’ve done little or nothing for or with the woman I used to be, because basically, life as I once knew it stopped.

Yes, for what felt like forever, I stopped seeing most of my family and friends, stopped going to the market (we had groceries delivered) and just, more or less, stayed home like a prisoner under house arrest.

Did life seem to stop for you, too? I think it did for most of us. I want to believe that it’s coming back in full glory. But it’s hard to know, isn’t it? Information seems to change day to day.

So instead of relying on what I might hear, I rely on things I trust to be true and have learned to count on in all my years. Never mind how many years. For example:

I put great trust in sunsets. I’d probably trust in sunrises, too, if I ever woke up in time to see one. But I’m a late-to-bed, late-to-rise kind of person. So sunsets are my thing. My husband and I sit outside most evenings to watch the sun go down, the moon come up and the stars fill the sky.

I wish you could see it.

I hope you can. I hope you see it often, wherever you may be.

It’s easier, I think, to trust in the future when we realize that the sun seems to know things we might forget, and it keeps rising and setting, rain or shine, to celebrate life twice every day.

Also, I trust people. Real people, neighbors and friends. You should trust them, too. In the hardest of times, it’s a gift to see good people rise up—not because they have great wealth, but because they have great hearts—to help others in need.

Have you noticed lately what your friends and neighbors are doing? Look around you. It will open your eyes and your heart.

Most of all, I trust in a power that always holds, like the old song says, “the whole world in his hands.” As a child, my blind brother would quiet his fears by singing himself to sleep. That song was one of his favorites. It’s one of mine, too.

Finally, I’m learning to trust, not in what I see in the mirror, but in what I feel in my soul. I know I’m getting older. I don’t need a mirror to tell me. My knees won’t let me forget.

I spend as much time as possible with my grandkids, laughing at their jokes, watching them turn cartwheels the way I did a lifetime ago, and telling them stories from “the old days.”

I would also spend time with people my age, but they’re all busy spending time with their grandkids. Or going to see doctors. Or looking for their glasses. Or trying to remember what they dropped on the floor and what else they ought to look for while they’re down there.

I know that’s how they spend their time because it’s how I spend mine, too. When I’m not making peanutbutter cookies.

I think most of us are just hoping to survive this pandemic and pass on to our children and grandchildren a few important things we’ve learned, such as:

_ Times get hard, but they get better. We help ourselves, but at our best, we help each other.

_ Failure isn’t falling down. It’s falling down and failing to get back up and try again.

_ Mirrors might tell us how old we look, but it’s what we see in the eyes of those we love that tells us how much we mean.

Maybe I’ll stop looking in the mirror. After I color my roots.

What’s your favorite time of year? I like different seasons for different reasons. But my favorite season is fall.

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my dad and his folks on their farm in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

In summer, I would wade in the creek, chase lightning bugs and go fishing with my dad. I never caught any fish, but I had great fun watching him try.

In winter, I would pray for snow. When my prayers were answered, I’d spend hours sliding on a hill in the pasture and throwing snowballs at cows, then come inside to drink cocoa and thaw my feet by the fire.

In spring, my grandmother and I would go hunting for anything in bloom—trees and herbs and all sort of wildflowers. She would teach me their names and explain why God made them: Some had medicinal uses, she said, and others were like certain people, they just made the world a better place.

In fall, the weather was usually perfect, warm enough to play in the creek by day, cold enough at night to cozy up and listen while my grandmother or my dad read to me or told me stories.

But my best fall memory begins with rain. I was 6, old enough to take a bus 40 miles from the station where my mother dropped me off, to the town where my dad picked me up. We drove to the farm in a steady drizzle. Clouds hid the mountains, thick and heavy as my grandmother’s quilts.

The next day, when the clouds parted, I went out to see a sight I will never forget. I yelled and my grandmother came running.

“Look!” I shouted, pointing at what looked to me like flames, “the mountains are on fire!”

She looked. Then she laughed.

“That’s not fire, child,” she said. “That’s just fall.”

I wish you could’ve seen it.

Maybe you have seen a fall of your own, one that you will never forget. I hope so.

Those leaves left their mark on my soul. Fall became my forever favorite season. Not just for its colors, but for other things, too. Books we read. Talks we shared. Good times we spent together.

We did all those things in every season. But in fall, the days grew shorter. And longer evenings gave us more time for things that meant the most.

I remember the smell of my grandmother’s stew simmering in a cast iron pot on her wood stove. She made it with venison my dad had hunted. I swear, a bowl of that stew and a hunk of her cornbread would make your eyes roll back in your head.

That was long ago, but I recall it clearly. Some memories are gifts that stay with us forever.

Life took me west and I left the mountains, but the mountains never left me. I raised my children in a different world, but with the same values I learned as a child. They love fall, as I do, for mostly the same reasons.

Thirty years ago this month, my dad took his life. His health was failing and he was weary of hospitals. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it still does.

He told me once, after his father died, that dying is part of life—that it’s how old things fulfill their purpose and make room on the Earth for the new.

Those words sing a silent hymn in my heart whenever I watch leaves fall to Earth.

When seasons change, they remind us that life keeps moving. We recall good times gone by, give thanks for the present, and dare to look forward to what lies ahead.

For supper tonight, I made a stew in my grandmother’s old cast iron pot. I used beef, not venison. It wasn’t as good as her stew, but we liked it. Tomorrow we’ll have leftovers. Maybe I’ll even bake cornbread.

I wish you could join us.

Fall will always be my favorite time of year. But the best season to celebrate life is any time, any place, every chance we’re given.