Memories among the backyard leaves

Autumn has, of late, made me ponder the concepts of chaos and control.

The former, we hope to conquer, despite its inevitability. The latter, we hope to hold onto, however fleetingly.

This fall, with its tempestuous visit from Hurricane Sandy, offered particularly vivid reminders of how a single day, indeed a few hours, can irrevocably alter one's fate. Houses, and lives, were swept away in mere instants by fierce waters and winds. The ancients had it right, I think, in making obeisance to the forces of nature, hoping to appease the gods of the seas and the skies.

On a recent sunny Sunday, I was determined to seize back control of my own environment, having largely ignored until then the mountains of leaves, twigs, and branches Sandy had deposited on my little third of an acre in the suburbs.

My determination, and the ambivalence preceding it, grew from memories of autumn 2010, when, had I been more aware, I might have realized the fates had swept my family to a point of no return.

My husband had been ill for years, with a chronic disease that did not so much kill him as take his life away. Unable to work at a regular job, he measured his good days by the degree to which he could care for our house and the parklike grounds that surround it.

It was a big job even back when he was well. Later, the undertaking became herculean, especially when it sometimes seemed the autumn leaves fell continually from August through New Year's.

Autumn 2010 was the first fall in eight that he just looked at the leaves and shrugged. He'd take care of them tomorrow, he'd vow. I'd tell him it didn't matter; I'd help, when he was ready. (Hiring someone to clear them would crush him, I knew.)

That Christmas, our guests parked around mounds in the driveway. In January, we had someone come in to plow the snow that had fallen atop the leaves. By mid-February, my husband was dead, and the leaves haunted me through April, when I finally managed to clear them with the help of a teenage family friend.

Autumn 2011, the person who had been caring for my property through late spring and summer took a different career path. And as the leaves fell again, I felt more and more inadequate to the task of wrangling them into submission. I gave in, I confess, to the sense that I had lost control, that I had allowed chaos to reign. And, I confess, I really didn't care.

Until spring came, and I refused to allow the new green foliage to compete with the moldy brown refuse of a season past. I called a new lawn service; the leaves vanished.

Autumn 2012, and I could have just waited for the lawn guys, who'd already made one pre-Sandy pass at the leaves. I could have spent that warm sunny Sunday not raking, not raising blisters on both hands. But when I awoke, I felt as if I had to wrest back control, even if for just a little while.

And as I raked, I cried. But mostly for those who this autumn have so much more to mourn than I.