Well we’ve entered October, my uncontested favourite month
of the year. I love it for so many reasons. The way the leaves swap their skin
for rich reds and golds, before falling to crunch underneath my running shoes;
the fact that I no longer have to banish my heater of a husband to the other
side of the bed, but rather welcome his warmth and let him snuggle in; the fact
that curling up in sweatpants with a hot tea and a lineup of horror movies is
an acceptable way to spend an evening. But mostly, I love October because to
me, this month means possibility. It means a new scent in the air; as I inhale it
reaches forward and with a chilled finger touches my heart, igniting a renewed
sense of purpose and confidence. October scraps last year’s problems and allows
me to believe in the prospect of a fresh start. October is my New Year.
And to me, October also means home. With Thanksgiving comes shared meals and memories with loved ones, and a satisfying fullness that can only be achieved with copious amounts of turkey and laughter. With Halloween there is candy, and Fear Fest, and baking cookies to look like fingers, and hand-making my girls’ Halloween costumes (a frightening prospect that makes it all the more enticing). There is meticulous pumpkin carving, and toasted pumpkin seeds, and then eventual pumpkin smashing when their grinning faces have crumpled inwards. No matter how old I seem to get, there is always something infinitely youthful and unspoiled about the joys of October; needless to say, I spend 11 long months waiting for it to come around.
Last week, my grandfather passed away, and it was the hardest death I’ve ever encountered. He was my last Hutt grandparent, one of my favourite people in the world, and his presence one of the only things in my entire life that has remained constant since childhood. Regardless of whatever happened within my family, my grandpa was always there with a smile, and kiss on the cheek, and a pocket full of Werthers that he’d nudge me towards. When you reach adulthood, you often find yourself disillusioned with the beliefs and people you’d held dear as a child, but I never hit a point like that with my grandfather; he was and continues to be one of the sweetest and dearest men I’ve ever met. But with his passing, a part of my childhood passed too. My world is changing. I am now more aware than ever that I have moved on to a stage of having babies of my own, who may one day make me a grandmother, and I am responsible for forwarding the love and traditions to them that were handed down to me.
And so I will bake apple pie for my family. And we will watch “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown”. And I will read my girls all different sorts of books before bed, because “for children 3 and up” is bullshit. And we will colour and get felt pen on everything, instead of watch television. And I will dig my fingers into pumpkin guts and let my girls play with the sticky orange strands and accept the way it ends up all over the house. When it rains, we will go outside and jump in puddles and pick up worms, because it is liberating to brave the downpour. And when evening slinks around with that dark crisp coldness, we will all sit in warmth around the dinner table, and put cell phones away, and simply enjoy being together.
My grandfather may be gone, but my children are not. And neither is October. As familiar and fixed as death may be, my favourite month will always return too, and with it a new season of growth and change for my family and myself. The falling leaves will make way for fresh green ones, the sudden storms will water the hidden flowers, and my daughters will grow as I do and make childhood memories of their own. The world continues to turn, life goes on, and we must take a deep breath of that sharp autumn air and go on with it.
