Vietnam and Autumn Leaves

It was the summer before college and I was working as a hiking counselor at a camp in the White Mountains.  My mother was in her last year of her life, and thousands were losing their lives in Vietnam, but both were so far away.  Just off the trail I was headed for some real food, and reading letters from my mom.  I remember stopping, walking to the lakes edge as the tears flowed and I read the line over and over, that a friend had died in Vietnam.   The next year, cancer would take my mom, but I would remember her words about my friend’s death in Vietnam, “Billy, he’s gone to a better place”, as I laid autumn leaves on her coffin.  Be open to the lessons / blessing adversity gives.