End of Summer – On to the Next Season

I’m glad it’s September. I’m done with summer.

It’s like when I wanted so much to have my parents come from Michigan to visit me and my husband in our new home and then the minute they pulled up in front of the house, I’d start wishing they would go home.

They visited maybe twice in ten years. Once was for Thanksgiving. This was special because they’d never met my mother-in-law and she was there in all her very Jewish glory and my parents, recovering anti-Semites, were gracious and interested in all she had to say. It was one of those Thanksgivings you thought could never happen, but it did, and it was remarkable. But just ‘the once’ as we used to say. Just the once.

The other visit was for my graduation. My father was never very complimentary. He wasn’t one for false praise or comments that would bolster my self-esteem. But I caught him reading my dissertation on the back porch during that visit. He looked up and said to me, “This is impressive.” So those were the two visits. They came one day, stayed another day, and left at dawn on the third. That seemed long to me.

But back to summer. It’s seemed endless.

A big part of its endlessness was Swirl dying. And then there were the many days of incredible wet heat marked by our resolve to not complain, just shuffle forward in our shorts and flipflops. A younger friend offered to help us with air conditioning, but we said, no, we have fans like we were old people heat martyrs, farmers in Nebraska’s August nearly fainting in the fields but eschewing aid. Just pour me a glass of lemonade, dear.

I am glad for September. For the end of heat and maybe the end of mourning for our dog. And I’m glad my parents aren’t coming to visit although, of course, I’d be glad to see them, if only for a short while.

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Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash