Teresa Yarbrough

One of my favorite things about the autumn season is the incredible variety of colors in the plant life I am surrounded by this time of year. The brilliant reds and burgundies, the shockingly vibrant shades of gold and orange capture my attention completely, regardless of whatever important or mundane thought had been my focus only seconds earlier.

Several years ago, during the fall, I had a genuine “hospice experience” while hiking through the colorful woods at Radnor Lake and it has become a recurrent annual practice since that time. On that first occasion, I had been walking deep in the forest on a particularly windy day and bright yellow leaves were literally cascading through the air from trees on the way to their final resting place on the ground. I remember being so taken aback by the beauty of the dancing, fluttering, twirling leaves that I simply had to sit on a nearby bench and take in the sight as fully as I could.

As I lay on my back on the bench, all I could see was an azure blue sky filled with spinning and reeling golden leaves. And yet each leaf seemed to have its own peculiar rhythm, its own particular pirouette, its own trajectory. That’s when it happened: my hospice moment. I began to consider the many lives I had been privileged to care for during their final descent from their own “tree of life” toward their own individual place of rest.

Suddenly, I was flooded with countless images paralleling the symbolism of a kaleidoscope of autumn leaves blowing in the wind, or free-falling with simple gravity – to lives lived colorfully, uniquely, in each and every aspect. The endless number of shapes and shades of leaves likened to the infinite number of experiences and adventures or personalities any particular person’s life has been characterized by. Observing the walking trail literally carpeted with fallen leaves brought to mind the elaborate way those lives continue to affect and inform family and friends still ambling along the path.

At times the extra cushion of a thick layer of leaves may soften the trekking or perhaps, on occasion, obscure the direction of the footpath momentarily. But always, in the end, the autumn leaves eventually nourish the earth and therein nurture each of us — just as the legacies of our loved ones have done for us.

It seems that my long walks in the autumn woods each year continue to bring to my memory the multi-layered and many-faceted metaphors that captivated my thoughts on that day years ago — in my original hospice moment.

Teresa Yarbrough is a registered nurse at Alive Hospice Residence Nashville.