A Shedding Story
By October, the old maple had stopped pretending summer was coming back.
The mornings were cooler now. The light arrived later and disappeared sooner. Across the yard, green was giving way to gold, amber, and red.
And every day, something fell.
A leaf.
Then another.
Then dozens.
The maple had spent months making those leaves. They had caught sunlight, sheltered birds, softened hard rains, and danced through summer storms.
They had been useful.
They had been beautiful.
And now their season was over.
The maple didn’t need to decide which leaf had mattered most.
It didn’t need to be angry with the leaves.
It didn’t need to convince itself they had been a mistake.
It simply stopped holding on.
One by one, the wind carried them away.
And with every leaf that fell, something unexpected happened.
The tree became lighter.
Soon its branches were almost bare.
To someone passing by, the tree might have looked empty.
But it wasn’t empty.
It was making room.
Beneath the bark, life remained. The tree was conserving its energy, strengthening what would stay, and preparing quietly for a season it could not yet see.
Winter was coming.
And the maple would meet it carrying only what it needed.
Perhaps that’s one of fall’s great lessons.
Not everything we release was bad.
Some things were wonderful.
Some relationships mattered deeply.
Some dreams served us for years.
Some roles helped make us who we are.
But something doesn’t have to be bad for its time to be over.
Fall doesn’t ask the tree to hate its leaves.
It simply asks:
What are you still carrying that this next season doesn’t require?