Today's post is filled with Autumn Images, all taken at Michigan State University's horticultural and children's gardens.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLBz5keSinB2_tcNHHJ0j1uz33bgHGyEKMrH9QwJKBAJ-NFLdBKDZA0OFyXuLb55l4CiVmM9mTTJZi5IPGRMlITL7mZblWvTTdQ2RQJoxI5hpevSo1BjvxOBk-GDMSHyV8VhUej-_fMU/s400/Gardens+and+Art+029.jpg)
Thanks for all of you who have sent good wishes and still visited the Marmelade Gypsy while I've been at home and sick -- not able to easily post and even less easily able to visit your blogs.
I have lots of catching up to do with my regular pals, along with the writers, the Halloween Party folk and the Pink Saturdays!
I'm back at work -- sort of. I got here about 1, after a doc appointment and a walk through MSU's gardens.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0MlvJwg3c8ksln63BY-VQOKnxG_muJTuIPo9GxZWsVxcL0Z_stNIfxwcrwHsapDPWHBiE0BM4aa0vUoHS6bT2Ui4of2QYRHXjYF2BR1-U9ggHjQvu040xYXmgjrtg_0m6C3jTVTSin6E/s400/Gardens+and+Art+031.jpg)
"Why the gardens when you're sick and it's raining?," you might ask -- and rightly so.
I guess, because I needed to.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX6xcBzKyUiKQBukKPiij2yRYv3FKSYyapqSh44AKShAFYx4HthWwXW8BXcQGMl9zV_UzZIcQLEvlY2N0mYsRpotG7ABzF_04x3D4Dpn087V5No85dEm8RfCPOPjN9JWxY9JF9_s0LcNE/s400/Gardens+and+Art+050.jpg)
All bundled up in the warm coat of many colors I bought in Canada, I walked through the drizzle with my camera, catching the last of autumn before forecasted snow comes. I hope it will pass me by and that my walk was premature. Still, no chances. I'm not taking chances.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikw1I92QYrJhK2HMPbKsK4TaZ-ydjaMYNPZR2d_toPUIkDnVZVgXB3xMNgi1aMTlL2WIuGajABo01-FWvc5friKTYtRE9NRLXdV2sYCe46vmv4qDlCKC8v77EAqD-m1BD0UiQY5-DN0_U/s400/Gardens+and+Art+030.jpg)
Don't put off till tomorrow -- we all say that, don't we. And, often make those calculated risks of what
can be put off until tomorrow, just assuming tomorrow is a normal day.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQNT7ZjBTnchTqYfDiq5Lxi_5qZC8dfoSiLSCd2jbOs_WKMmXFu2QcbmCJGg43-HkEb_4TfZA-Tw_fj9D_OUEZmzUGATRWXkDLJYw-IxvBEcjqDzpAk35ZILEgynjP2n8jgQC94gUpWs/s400/Gardens+and+Art+043.jpg)
I thought of that when I walked into my office and saw papers I meant to take to the in-house mail before I was sick last Tuesday, sitting in the same stacks as before. (I think they put a quarantine sign around my office. Even the janitors didn't come in.)
But I've thought of it before, too. I've been thinking about it for the past almost-24 hours.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhT6D8gBYArBOEQbeKaVs1aJOwWcpWolqdG7VfMjp54hHvMZVNOlP6zzwxfmvO-HDNuNLcO6Nd6ZvF47WkNEN17FlJJGHPD1njJAJiJ-GC_ReteGfYA51mffBUXiz52T0iObsQsvoJ9ojM/s400/Gardens+and+Art+053.jpg)
Last night Rick came over with my dinner (he has been so good to bring me dinner every night). And after I finished eating, he said, "Turn off the tv." Made sense to me -- he's not that fond of TV, and it's all the same these days.
Then he said he had something to tell me -- and told me that his cousin, the vibrant, feisty, energetic and outrageously creative thirtysomething Andrea, had died unexpectedly that weekend.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuxxgyct0ZrcrN-aVW_0N3u-JiwxuF_znIgjt_lbBGnWcap6C1aPIjFeQTKa8NY4i4FWYkjuUWoxUa3uEPSBugU3_D93AQfYVrSfBSAC-wjSwjODKc9zstNvHbP8c8gPd_98fqCnNK_fU/s400/Gardens+and+Art+036.jpg)
We are filled with sorrow for Andi and her family. For all of us, really, for it's a huge loss. More than I want to write about right now, for my heart is aching for them all, and for me, too. And writing about this -- no, believing this -- is so very hard.
One day, you're alive. Ready to face the world. And, even if you're not really "ready," you are darned grateful that you can.
And so, as I walked under the raining sky, it felt as though the world was crying with me. I had to see this garden, at one time so very much alive. Now, drying up, withering, ready to rest.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizjOvXIGxn0Gvopi-4MINzn5WQpQAfxee-4gUlw3gDTGt79lN1TDA2uyU_KvcABpll77YstTYuovppwdGH1l5R7D2QU6KTLPvAHTyzp4VGMrOO5l96vTD8oVbFzYxWmzDbUaJ3EU87lhA/s400/Gardens+and+Art+025.jpg)
And I couldn't help but think of Andi, so colorful and vibrant, like the flowers I saw in the gardens several times this summer. Alive and beautiful. That color, the joy now still.
The colors of brown and rust and tan were occasionally punctuated by a colorful tree or the purple astors. But those were fewer and farther between. It was a place of quite, beautiful in its own way, but in a lost, lonely beauty. One of sorrow.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgs55Fn3jFwlHyHTvx06To0SycoNCqNdzmGwPViTJEhjAAWahEh4OSSTV-3FkLsMOFVeajH_7uJiQLOm1qV7uGlNxyOSzi8JI0356Gt48GTYjggfgAKk7WMHf0pIdRZsU0pAKbnvJWb5to/s400/Gardens+and+Art+065.jpg)
I was alone, and yet I didn't feel alone, but accompanied by all the others who have left too soon.
I know the garden will be beautiful again. But Andi -- her beauty must now be in our hearts.
Crossing the bridge.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4tTmBZVguZkMjsSndJWVesGNBfpM2YObw03eNybLUbA2XOY8m8AdazNpFCXGO8uUKEfaNUmQQFyFdhqFzIc7qLtLktVy79Vfli2yK4RpoyqCjm-RlfwU7EFFJBz7iKi1J2hlAF2H-fE/s400/Gardens+and+Art+064.jpg)
Sometimes, it just doesn't feel like it's time to cross the bridge.