The clouds mirrored my mood. I sat back against the trunk of the old oak my grandfather’s initials were carved into and stared up the hill.

The lone tree atop the gentle slope was flaming red. If the sun had been shining, it would have been so crisp, so clear. The fiery red and the jewel green of the grass. Instead, it was an overcast, gloomy day, and I could ponder the potential of the colors.

Sometimes things are most fair right before they fail. The beauty atop the hill was already shedding dead leaves, preparing for a hard winter. I felt much the same.