Goodbye is just the beginning

And now it is time to say goodbye.

Goodbye to the two male squirrels and the female who shared our attention, our property and our lives since last autumn when they arrived here as orphaned babies.

The trees have sent out their calling cards - big green leafy ones that dangle invitingly from the branches.

This season belongs to them. The woods are echoing quietly with the sounds of the tiny feet whose generations have gone there in all the seasons before theirs.

Goodbye to three squirrels, three very good squirrels. Nature and circumstance had made them orphans and now nature and circumstance have made them whole again.

All they need for their completeness now is woodland. It is their birthright.

And so their day is coming. That day, weather permitting, is tomorrow.

My goodbye is just the beginning for them.
I will not see them again in this lifetime.
I can only wish them, on this second time around, the best that nature and circumstance have to offer them all.