The Last Leaf

 O'Henry is one of my favorite writers.  He wrote stories with a twist that you didn't see coming.  His story, "The Gift of the Magi," is a Christmas tradition.  His actual name was William Sydney Porter.  His nom de plume was O. Henry, or Oliver Henry, or Olivier Henry.  As a writer I understand that it can be entertaining to create new names to write with.  He did so, partially because he wrote some of his stories while he was in prison.  I'm getting ahead of the story, let me back up.

O'Henry was extremely prolific writing somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 short stories and poems.  He had an extremely colorful life working as a pharmacist, a bank worker, (he served three years in prison for embezzlement) a draftsman, a small business owner (he published satirical works, both his and other writers).  He was a musician, artist, pharmacist, and writer, it seems like an unlikely combination of skills. 

He married his first wife when she had tuberculosis.  They eloped because her mother was very much against the marriage.  Two children were born to their union but only one survived.  Another irony, his daughter died in 1927 of tuberculosis.  That miserable disease claimed both mother and daughter although years apart.  

One of his stories, "The Last Leaf is about a girl who is an invalid.  (In my youth that is what a disabled person was called).  She was stuck in her bed in a small apartment.  Day in and day out all that she experienced of the outside world was the view from her bed out the window.  (This story has become sharper in my memory because I have spent an inordinate amount of time during the pandemic staring straight ahead out of my windows).

In high school I was cast as this sickly girl.  She had a chest complaint.  That certainly resonated with me.  I could add my asthmatic bronchial cough to the realism of the character.  Here is an irony inside the story of an irony, I caught bronchitis.  I couldn't play the character because I was too sick.  

Back to the story, it is late autumn, moving towards winter.  There is ivy growing on a wall outside her window.  The leaves have turned a beautiful crimson.  The girl gains the morbid idea that when the last leaf falls she'll die.  The custodian of their apartment building is an old man.  He hears about this girl's belief.  He paints a leaf so that the last leaf will never fall.  He does this errand of mercy in inclement weather.  The girl is so heartened by the leaf that does not ever fall she gets better.  The custodian does not fare as well.  He sickens and dies.  

That story has been  at the forefront of my mind as I stare day in and day out at the luxuriant trees outside my window.  In spring they begin to bud, summer finds them verdant and green, autumn colors them a brilliant crimson, then they begin to dance away on the breezes.  Now?  There are very few hearty leaves left, still clinging to the mostly denuded branches.  

Here is where I differ.  I do not believe that those falling leaves are an image of death.  I heartily endorse a quote that says, "Anyone who believes that autumn leaves die has not watched them dancing in a breeze."  Well that might be paraphrased but the idea is there.  

Right now, the branches seem skeletal, scratching at an iron gray sky.  I will do my best to remember that the leaves dance away, but they return when spring comes.  I actually saw my neighbor in the building across the way a few days ago.  I can't see anything but a silhouette against the window but somehow for a brief moment I felt a sense of community that this pandemic has stripped away from me.