CHANGING SEASONS AND A LETTER FROM GOD

I have a story to tell. It’s just a simple story, nothing magical, but I keep thinking about it as the leaves pile up in the streets and the fog settles into the valley.

The story began with a phone call from my great friend, Mel.

At the time Mel was 83 and he’d been sober for 35 years. He was one of the most soul-full people I know. I think he may have been an angel.

He certainly seemed ageless. He still had a full head of brown hair (no dye), his voice could carry a choir, and his eyes were crinkled up at the corners from smiling all the time.

Laughter and love — that’s what Mel was all about. He was also one of the best joke-tellers I know and, like so many Minnesotans of Norwegian descent, he was especially fond of the slightly off-color Ole and Lena jokes.

In case you haven’t heard about these characters, here’s a joke Mel told me that can be printed in the newspaper.

Ole and Lena had Mr. and Mrs. Thorvald over for a holiday dinner of lutefisk. Mr. Thorvald liked his lutefisk with heaps of melted butter and cracked black pepper, and Lena was glad to oblige.  But after the Thorvalds went home, Lena made a horrifying discovery. She had served Mr. Thorvald gunpowder instead of black pepper!

Well, it was too late to call, so Lena lay awake all night worrying. Early the next morning she called Mr. Thorvald and admitted her mistake.

“I’ve done a terrible thing,” she confessed. “Last night I served you gunpowder instead of black pepper with the lutefisk.”

“Oh, thank God!” said Mr. Thorvald. “That explains it all!”

“Explains what?” asked Lena.

“Well, when we got home, I bent over to untie my shoe, and I shot the cat!”

So on the phone this particular day as we talked about this and that, Mel told me one of his jokes, and we laughed until we cried, as we always did.

“Well, my dear,” Mel said, “I have one eye on the clock, and I’m afraid I must go. It’s Tuesday, you know.”

Every Tuesday, Mel drove into downtown Seattle to spend time with the folks at the Matt Talbott Rescue and Recovery Center. The Center is a second home for men and women of all ages, colors, religions, and ethnicities who gather together to find the strength to make it through the day, one day at a time.

On Tuesdays, Mel talked to them about the Twelve Steps and “spiritual recovery,” which means he told stories.

“But before I leave,” Mel said to me on the phone that day, “do you have time for a story?”

“Of course,” I said. I always had time for Mel’s stories.

The story began on a beautiful Tuesday afternoon, a few weeks earlier. Mel was walking to his car to drive to the Recovery Center, and he stopped for a moment to watch the leaves falling from the trees in his yard.

One big leaf in particular caught his eye. All tan, brown, yellow and green, it was as big as Mel’s large Norwegian hand, “a literal handful of sheer beauty,” as he put it.

Mel picked up the leaf and took it to the meeting, where he passed it around for all to see.

When the leaf came back to him, he announced that it was, in fact, more than a leaf. It was a letter. He held up the letter and began to read.

“My dear children, I am sending you this letter to announce the beginning of a new season,” Mel began, using his finger to trace the invisible words along the leaf’s intricate veins.  “Fall is arriving, and it is time to let go of Summer. Winter will come soon, and then it will be Spring.  For your joy and comfort, I bring you these seasons. I offer you the Sun for daylight warmth, the Moon for nighttime comfort, and the Stars for pondering.

“I do this for you, your children, and your children’s children because I want you to enjoy the life I have given you. I hope you will have enough joy left over to give some away to your neighbors, whom I ask you to love as I love you.

“With peace and love, God.”

After Mel finished reading the letter, a young woman in the back of the room stood up and walked slowly toward him. Hands shaking, voice trembling, she said softly, “May I please keep that letter?”

Mel gave her the leaf and she held it tenderly, tears streaming down her face.

“I knew when I first saw that leaf,” Mel told me, finishing his story, “that it was a gift—the gift of another season. I’m just grateful that I could pass it along.”

Me, too, Mel.  Me, too.