“I’m 88, and it’s getting late. . .”

I got up this morning in the cold dark and peeked outside. The first thing I saw was Venus, low in the sky, bright in the earliest inkling of dawn. I rose, inspired, and soon Mr Darcy and I were on our way to the light.

I couldn’t help but notice the beautiful, hippie-carnival colors of the trees. The bright pink sky had an influence, I’m sure, but still, those colors! Since I was free today until mid-morning, and Mr. Darcy was too, once he checked his calendar (he is so old-fashioned, doing everything on paper–like me!), we decided to head out to the lake at Louis Emory Park in Hillsdale to check out the scenery over there. (Okay, I decided. But he didn’t resist.)

On the way over, I was counting up the days until the leaves will be on the ground. Since we are supposed to get down to freezing Sunday night, those that haven’t started changing may just fall down green. (So sad!) But all told, we will probably have mostly bare branches in this neck of the woods in about 10 days.

Just a few more days, I thought to myself. The color means that the leaves have already died, in the sense that they no longer make food or sustain themselves on the life of the tree, and so they will soon drop. I began to reason with myself: I can come back again before they are gone and get a few more pictures. I have some time left.

Then I remembered how the perfectly clear dawn of last Sunday was completely covered with clouds within a couple of hours. It is truly amazing how quickly the sky can change! But that means that this beautiful morning leaves us no guarantees. This many be my last chance to take pictures of the colorful trees against the blue sky before they are bare!

With that thought I felt the old familiar sense of urgency descend, that feeling of being at a moment in time when everything is going to change and we can do nothing about it except stay awake and watch, take pictures, or write journal entries. In that moment I could feel the change coming as if it were something physical. We are at that moment on the top of the roller coaster where you can see all the way down the hill, but you just hang there because the back of the train hasn’t been released yet.

I have been feeling that way for a while now, like things are changing and will never be the way they were before. The crazy thing is that it’s totally true. And it’s not just falling leaves I am talking about. I probably don’t need to explain; we are all in the same story.

My impression for the day was to do the thing you know you need to do, because you never know when it will be your last chance. Give that hug, send that card or bake those cookies. Tell the person you love that you love them, and remind them that God loves them even more. Don’t let the “urgent” get in the way of the “important.”

For me, I spent a little more time and took some more pictures. And I did some thinking, and then did some other things I needed to do.

My grandmother, Arleen McMahon, who died in 1999, spoke out about the beauty of the spring flowers that year. “God is making them extra beautiful this spring,” she said. “He knows it’s my last one.” She wasn’t sick at the time; God took her suddenly at the end of September. She was active until the month before she died, doing laundry for others who couldn’t in her building, hosting a Bible study, writing poems until the very end.

“I’m 88, and it’s getting late,” one of the last ones started. So she had a premonition that turned out to be right. I am feeling that: A premonition. I don’t know what it means yet, but it can be expressed by the way I felt when I realized that today might be the last chance to take pictures of the beautiful trees.

Do you have something to do? Just do it. Move heaven and earth to do it if you must. Have faith that God will give you the strength, but do it. Don’t wait. We are not promised tomorrow.