I found this tiny leaf on Sunday. I was sitting on the floor of our bedroom hallway in front of the closet, trying to organize my shoes. This was visible just inside one of my slippers. Dried out, cracked and folded in one section, I picked it up and looked at it more closely. I then found the fold of the broken fragment resting against the opposite side. Still attached, at least enough to do so, I was able to gently bend it back into place, re-forming the whole leaf to its complete shape. The fracture was still there, yet not at all visible.
I held the leaf in the palm of my hand. I recognized a harmony within the patterns of both: the folds, lines and even the cracked section returned to their original place. The leaf and my hand, both living and dead, share an organic origin within nature.
As I sat in the hallway, immersed in this act, I felt a wave of remembrance. Like everything else in this house, there are echoes of my past that are ever-present, occasionally getting triggered into an awareness and recognition.
Today would have been Linda's 65th birthday. Through this leaf, I was reminded of how the connections and patterns between the living and the dead inherently share a duality. One can not exist without the other. One is always on its way to becoming the other. One's influence continues beyond the point at which they themselves do not.
Linda and I once shared this home, this room, this hallway, this closet. In my mind, I correlated the act of "repairing" the leaf to the year I spent being dedicated to honoring our connections, history, and helping her and our children through that final stretch of her life. Aligning the fractures and making whole what had been broken and considered dead.
I strive to stay conscious of the lessons I learn throughout that time. I continue to reflect on it frequently, integrating it as much as possible into how I try to expand my perspective. It's not easy. I often forget, yet eventually remember how fleeting this all will have been when I become the leaf reflected on within the palm of the living.