The Other Side of Summer

Dear Fall,
I miss you. Why did you have to leave so suddenly? I miss your warm, but not too hot, sun shiny afternoons. I miss your bright leaves and my kids with rakes 4 times bigger than them. I miss your gentle breeze that is so perfect I feel like I might be in a dream. I miss your harvest of juicy apples and huge squashes and bright tomatoes and carrots and beans and raspberries and pears. I hoped you could have stayed longer. I hoped we could have had one real last horse ride in your perfectness. I miss your smells of crunchy leaves and spicy muffins. I miss the carpet of leaves on the lawn and the acorns in the grass at the park. Now those things are hiding under the cold forbidding snow. Why did you have to yield to the snow? Why could you not have pushed it off just a little longer? Why, why I ask you? I guess I'm just a California girl at heart. You can take the girl out of California, but you can't take California out of the girl. I miss the sweet years when you'd stay with me all the way to Christmas and beyond. Your breeze and gentle rays kept me warm for months and months. You never let me freeze and the snow chill my bones. How I ache for your sweet rays. Spring seems so far away now. Don't leave us so cold and bleak. I look forwar to the promise of your return. After we've had another long, hard winter Spring will come again, and with it the promise of warmth and sunshine. Summer will not be far from Spring. And before we know it all the long summer nights will have passed all too quickly, filled with camping and planting and hiking and playing and laughing. Then, there you will be, waiting for me just on the other side of summer. Then we will play in your gentle sun and pick your bright leaves once again. Then we'll pick apples and relish their sweet goodness. Then we'll play in the leaves and be happy once again. I know you're there, just waiting on the other side of Summer. Til then, I'll miss you terribly, the memory of your warmth always be in my heart.
Love, Me