The Importance of Seeing Orange

At this time last year, I was half-way through a six week long stay in the hospital.  I had been through one round of chemotherapy, and I was starting a second.  I had a window, but I didn’t often get out of the bed to go look through it, and the view was mostly concrete and asphalt.  The only way that I could tell that the seasons were changing was by my friends’ wardrobes — I began to see heavier jackets and scarves that had still been packed away before I entered the hospital.

I love autumn.  I always have.  There’s a kind of energy in the air that you just don’t experience at any other time.  There’s something special, something promising… I feel like autumn is charged with potentiality that even spring, with all of its growth and reemergence, doesn’t possess.  The shift from autumn to winter is one of the saddest moments of the year for me, not because I hate winter (although I’m not a huge fan…) but because I love autumn so much.

So last year, the fact that I spent basically the entirety of autumn in a hospital bed with nothing but weather.com and my friends’ scarves to reveal the season… it was hard.  I missed autumn.

But the other side of that experience is important to note, as well.  On the day that I was released from the hospital, I bundled up in a jacket and stocking cap and climbed into a wheelchair to head outside for the first time in a month and a half.  Most of the trees outside had lost all of their leaves by that point, and the only remnants of autumn were the piles of brown, crunchy leaves that had collected against houses or in the gutters.  Just outside the hospital door, though, is a carefully cared-for bit of landscaping, including a small tree.

That tree was the brightest orange I had ever seen.  It was vibrant, living orange, shot through with sparks of brilliant yellow.  It was absolutely beautiful, and I cried.  I hadn’t been outside for so long, I had just had six weeks of my life stolen by a sickness none of us expected, and I had missed my favorite season.  But here was this tree, like God’s personal promise to me that He knew what I had missed, and that He cared.

I keep remembering that tree this year.  Everywhere I drive, whether it’s through the Ozark hills on my way home or down the interstate to St. Louis for more medical checkups or even just between my house and campus, I can see the changing seasons.  I’ve always loved autumn, but I don’t think I ever appreciated it as much as I do this year.

Next time you think, “Wow, the leaves on that tree are gorgeous,” I hope that you’ll follow it up by saying, “And I’m so lucky to get to see it!”  Because you are. :)