Yevet Tenney

Here’s a short Christmas story about a fictional character named Jimmy. Hope you enjoy!

It wasn’t like I really meant to argue with Mom and run away. Mom’s not the arguing kind – but when she announced we were going to have one more foster kid come to our home, I couldn’t take it.

Today the wind is blowing. The yellow and orange leaves swirl over the sidewalks and the green-brown grass. The sky is ice blue with haze of dust that lifts from the horizon like a transparent fog.

The air breathes with the nip of pre-winter weather. The roses are dried brown from the first frosts and the plants left in the garden slump in shriveled clumps.

I feel the need to get in tune with nature and slow the madding pace to a lazy stroll. I am aware that summer passed like a dream and spring was a blur of unremembered events.

I once heard that “the only thing that is constant is change itself.” The bare tree limbs of winter turn to blossoms of spring and the emerald glory of summer, and then give way to the brilliant dappled orange, red and yellow of autumn.

The sun comes up in a different sky every morning. Nothing stays the same. Our once-golden hair turns silver and our athletic, conditioned bodies start to sag here and there.

The laughter of our children turns from tears back to laughter again. The tiny infants we cuddled in our arms are suddenly toddlers, then kindergartners, then teens. Suddenly they are wearing tuxes and wedding gowns.