A Book & Shades Of Yellow

I sit here on my couch, a dog on either side of me, and out of the corner of my eye, I see movement on the patio. 

When I pause to look up, I see a few leaves floating down from the tree.

 
There is no wind gust behind them. Just a casual drifting down of the leaves that have dried and turned. 
 
The peaceful way they are falling reminds me to live slower. To relax and breathe deeply. To make the most out of each day.

Isn't it funny how watching some things happen affect us physically? Like a fist that opens up, I feel my shoulders loosen. And I appreciate the reminder that nature is giving me.

The shades of yellow on my patio greet me each day. 

There is just something comforting and cozy about the color yellow, don't you think? Just makes you smile. It is a sunbeam in your day.

As the days get shorter, I will feel the urge to light candles in the early evening for the soft glow of yellowed light.

 
At night I read of course. Right now I'm reading the first in a series of three books.

I'm reading the ebook on my Kindle. The first book, My Sister's Grave, had four and a half Amazon.com stars and thousands of reviews.  

Seemed a good bet. And with my Kindle Unlimited subscription ($9.99 per month) I don't have to pay extra.

 
The first book is about a female detective whose sister disappeared twenty years before. In the first pages bones are found in the area. They belong to her sister.

The detective started out as a teacher and was soon to be engaged. 

That very night had been her last glimpse of her 18 year old sister as her boyfriend drove to a restaurant where he would propose. She had watched her sister getting smaller and smaller as they got farther down the road.

When they were leaving, she had pressed her car keys into her sister's palm. She told her to be careful, as it was getting dark.

Her boyfriend was urging her to hurry. She had no idea what he had planned. But her sister did.

Then in the wee hours, the engagement ring on her finger, she got a phone call. Her truck had been found abandoned on a lonely county road. Her sister was nowhere to be found. 

She had made her sister promise to take the highway when they parted. But her headstrong sister had not obeyed. And now she was gone.

Can you imagine? Just gone.

Fast forward twenty years and the teacher is now a detective and unmarried. The boyfriend is out of the picture. 

I have dealt with families of missing loved ones. 

The looks on their faces, years down the road, show the ravages of time and unfulfilled hope. 

I think of them whenever I read a book about the missing. You never quite get over the experience. Or at least I haven't. 

I can still feel the pressed air in the room where I interviewed them, though years have passed and I can no longer visualize the room we sat in. 

As though an invisible hand had pushed them down into a place they might never rise back up from. Drowning them in their sorrow.

The very air was heavy with years of grief. I know no other way to explain it. 

I recall that photos of the missing loved one smiled down at us from framed glass. Frozen in time.