The exotic travels. The White Mountains and Cape Cod beaches. The backyard barbecue parties. The summer jobs and internships. The Sturgeon Moon. All the summer fun that’s going to slip in the rearview.
Time never travels this fast, you might say.
This is late summer, and golden autumn is around the corner, when the before-school shopping frenzy starts. We look back on the summer’s laughter and plan for the year ahead, building dreams for our children’s day-one school image – new shoes, new pencil boxes and backpacks, fresh notebooks…
When the August full moon rose, “like to a silver bow new-bent in heaven,” as Shakespeare wrote, it cast its glow over the final act of summer. And under this glow, I flashed on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where laughter and headaches blend and collide, sharing the same stage. This was our late-summer scene, and my family had their roles to play.
Today I received a letter – one I had dutifully written to myself, asking how my family and I have been, and what the next dreams are. Instead of a quick “Great,” as we’d say to neighbors in passing, I answered as if filing a report for my boss.
Act I – Mason, my eldest, proudly working in EMT service for the summer, came back one day with tears. A stretcher slipped, and the patient fell. No one blamed him, not even the patient – the circumstances were unusual – but Mason felt the weight of it deeply. For him, it was about responsibility, focus, and the truth that saving lives is what truly matters.
Act II – Molly, our beautiful 11-year-old cat, lost her battle to an aggressive form of cancer. My son Tyler had to cut short his camp trip with his girlfriend to be back and see Molly one last time. “How are you?” the vet greeted us, then quickly corrected herself,
“I’m sorry” when she saw us all in tears. Eleven years – a lifetime of memories for my
teenage kids – closed in a single moment.
Act III – My 2,500-word memoir about my father is soon to appear in print. It was written during Covid years, the last time I saw him before he passed away two years later, in a late summer. He had worked all his life for the Palace Museum in Beijing – formerly the Forbidden City – and was a key defender during the Cultural Revolution, blocking attempts to destroy the heritage site. I never wrote about his passing, because I believe he still lives with us, and in our hearts. Forever.
Some people dream big, and I salute that. In my mind though, an ordinary life fully lived is just as beautiful. At the time our twin kids are soon to be seniors at Westford Academy, I see my wife still thumbing through pictures of their infancy – memories flashing anew.
Such is late summer – a season of endings and beginnings, where all dreams linger before dawn, and where, in my heart, we still have my father on the stage, still with Molly among us.
The curtain has not fallen, and it never will. Because the play continues on the stage, the stage with a future we all live for.
