Sifting

Dad and I raked leaves this morning--him with the power blower, and me with the old-fashioned wire rake. The wet leaves clung with earnest to one another clutching the damp morning grass only to be tossed to the air and slowly directed to piles at the edge of the driveway. I smiled with my wool sweater and goofy hat, watching as my dad in his classic outdoors sweatshirt and "Proud Grandpa" hat shuffled the leaves along.

And then I shifted back, back to weekends where we three girls piled in the back seat of an old Honda, with Bruce Springsteen "Working on the Highway" sounding from the cassette tape in the front as we cruised down the highway to my dad's parents house in Connecticut. Squirreling out of the car, M&M wrappers trailing, Kate and I would race to the one tree we were allowed to climb--a large maple in the side yard. As Dad and Mum unloaded the suitcases and my little sister, Kate and I were already dangling from the branches, our 80's sweatshirts high on our tummies. And then Dad would be there raking a nice pile of leaves under our low level branch. Piles of brown and slightly yellow leaves grew higher and higher until we got the signal to jump, falling from the limb with Mum's voice echoing out the door, "Girls, be careful not to break your arms!" And we would laugh, damp by the wet leaves, pulling sticks from our hair, throwing leaves at each other, burying ourselves to see if Dad noticed we were missing, and then shaking them off and crawling up the tree for another launch.

Dad swapped me for the leaf blower after half the front yard was done, so that he could teach me a trick, flipping the rake over and pushing the leaves like a snow plow down the yard into the pile. "Like a true New England boy," I laughed, taking the rake back to test it out for myself and tossing the leaves high on the pile thinking about Kate's little boy mere weekends ago lying in a similar pile of leaves to have his picture taken...