What have I missed?

I have asked this tree many questions over the five years it’s been my window’s view. I have looked to it when I have writer’s block and when I’m overwhelmed. This simple tree is always there, just to the right of my desk at work. It’s always there to catch the snow, or to bud in the spring, or to be brilliant in the summer, but it’s the fall that reminds me to ask what have I missed?

I ask this tree what I have missed because it turns from summer green to barren winter in a matter of weeks. I ask this tree what I missed because, though I’ve had this tree to my side for years, I have not often gotten to see the leaves change. “What did I miss?” I would ask the tree, shivering the gloom and gray of early winter, “Just the change” it seems to say back.

But today, I ask the tree on the cusp of losing all its leaves what I missed and the answer was “You’ve missed nothing my dear. Nothing at all.”