This evening I took the route home that gives me a view of the city skyline.

The sun was setting. The air was cool but soft and my heart swelled with nostalgia, not for things of my past, but rather for the very moment I was in, how it would soon be over.

My mom called as I was walking home. "It's beautiful outside,” she said, “I just got back from a walk, and it occurred to me that I don't know how many more autumns I will have."

Pause.

"It was so nice to feel the air on my skin," she said, her voice as tender as that very air.

Death is not an unfamiliar topic for my mother and I to discuss, it has been with us in many forms, many ways, and she has instructed me on what to do upon hers: not stay too long in grief, buy myself a beautiful dress, give roses to strangers. But in recent years, the tone of her voice around the topic has changed, and it is clear that she is coming to terms with, preparing for, something else, what’s next.

So that’s why I took the detour on my way home tonight and walked to the park to catch the last glimpse of sun and feel the breeze against my bare arms.