Passing of time and the falling of leaves

LIFE is precious.

That’s easy to say and when you do everyone will agree.

But still we forget as we rush to that next job or task in our busy schedules.

The hurly-burly of our lives spins constantly.

The pace of our society seems to accelerate with each new gadget that is more efficient than the last.

And yet everything passes, almost imperceptibly, so you hardly notice.

My father captured this in a painting.

He was a great landscape artist and has left a wonderful legacy depicting life in North Queensland.

One of his works particularly has captured the imagination of our family.

It is a kind of snapshot of a couple of square metres of leaves on the ground.

The leaves are in varying stages of decay. The patterns and colours are fascinating.

It shows life passing in a grand cycle as each living thing is born and then returned to the earth, where life can be reborn.

The recent weddings of my nieces caused me to think about this cycle of life and my own wedding now so long ago.

My wife and I chose to be married in my parents’ backyard.

My father had made a sort of paved amphitheatre with a path and lovers’ bench that seemed made for us.

I remember mum and dad fussing over preparations for the garden.

Each day for months leading up to the wedding the garden would be tended and cleared of leaves only for my parents to wake the next day and have countless more leaves to clean up.

Later in life my poor mother would become obsessed with clearing the leaves in the garden.

That is passed now. Dad and mum died quite a few years ago and the family home in Rose St has been sold.

Occasionally I will drive by and peek in. There is a new family residing in the home with new adventures and experiences to share.

I think to myself: little do they know this is sacred ground. And the leaves continue to fall.