Bittersweet

I know that I have mentioned before that autumn is my favourite season. There is usually a point in August, when the sun starts slanting differently in the late afternoon and the evenings are cooler, that I think "bring on fall". I had a twinge of that very early this year (it was just a really cool morning breeze which made me happy ), but today was the day that I saw the sun casting a different glow around four o'clock. A more golden, the-sun-is-lower-in-the-sky kind of light. And as much as I am looking forward to the season and all it brings with it (Back to school!! Crisp nights! Sweaters! Beautiful leaves! Pumpkins!), this year it is very bittersweet. Because Beck leaves on Friday.

This is not a bad thing. In fact, it is wonderful and exciting. She is headed to Yale to do her Master's with a full scholarship. I am so proud of her and her accomplishments. She was always an old soul, even when she was 11 and in the youth group at church that Hubby and I ran for a couple of years. She and I really became friends towards the end of my first season singing in the choir. At first I felt a little odd - here she was, all grown up and I didn't know what to say besides hello, until one day we started chatting. Since then, she has become one of my closest friends (and Clara's idol! The first time Beck came over for dinner, Clara couldn't eat because she was so mesmerized by Beck's long hair!). She and I were the core of the Church Bar Group that go for drinks after choir. First it was Beck and I who started going out, and then we added to our group . . . Diva, Daisy (before she left choir), Bugle Boy, and Newfie Postdoc. Last week, we did some psalm recording for Gordon on Tues and Thurs evenings. On Tuesday, Bugle Boy, Diva, Beck and I went to the Church Bar afterwards, and I realized that it was probably the last time. And on Thursday, when Beck was singing, I almost started crying because it finally hit me how much I'm going to miss her.

I may have joked . . . frequently! . . . that I was really looking forward to choir this fall because with Beck gone, there was one less first soprano and I would be more than happy to fill that spot. I would often say to her "yeah, yeah, hurry up and go to Yale, I want your spot". But as excited as I am for her, I would gladly stay in the seconds to keep her here. I'm going to miss her so much.

*Please excuse any grammatical errors - it's hard to type when you're weepy