The wind moves through the woods, urging the trees to divulge their secrets, ever so carefully working the rustling from them. Small flowers poke up from beneath the carpet of old leaves, stretching their petals to the few rays that pass through the colorful foliage, hoping they remain one more day before the frost comes. Small squirrels and rabbits occasionally scurry by, finishing up their last few chores before the snow and cold bring yet another change.

Change—it often seems beautiful at first, titillating in its display despite the feeling of loss of what was past, but it is just a guise for what is to come: cold winds, frozen ground, naked trees. But change is not always as easy to predict as that of the seasons, sometimes that change is good—like winter to spring—yet there is no way to perfectly tell if the cold or the warmth is the next feeling to come. Of course, even when we enter the season of cold, there is hope. As in nature, things cannot stay dark forever, there must be rotation, light must grace all things at some time; it is just often hard to look forward.

Nature is capable though, it manages to push through the coldest winters to come to life again, to kiss the spring with sweet green buds. Looking forward, taking what comes one moment with the thought that the next could be so much brighter. It is something many struggle with; optimism is a difficult trait. There is one girl though who’s face finds ways to always return to the glow of a mid-spring sun—her determination like that of the flowers, finding places to bring forth their young beauty when sometimes giant obstacles stand in their way.

She smiles, the sun becomes brighter, and winter retreats one more day. It’s the feeling one gets when around her; laughter, happiness, love—these are her drugs, to which it is so easy to become addicted. That is how I came to be here, standing before her, staring into her eyes. I’m addicted, I won’t deny it. She is beauty in its rarest form: happiness. So few can compare to her, least of all myself, depression haunts me like a ghost, darkness living in my very eyes, except when her eyes meet mine.

These moments with her are a fading summer, bright, long, sunny days growing shorter and shorter, and warm nights growing colder. A girl like her does not come around very often—if at all—and the short summer she brought into my life is now reaching a change. But her beauty will live on; winters do not stay in her heart, or beneath her feet, no matter how deep the snow is piled. What a disaster it is to leave such a constant beauty, but such is the way of change. The only thing is to hope the winter may be weathered and that a spring will be waiting at the end.

The problem is, if I lose her, I do not know if I can believe in sunlight anymore, even if the world forces a turning, will my heart be too black to see the sun? But she says—the delicate angel—that she will never leave me, tells me with all the love of a child she will wait. I can only hope this to be true. My summer fades, but with her words, a fire still burns, and a sun still rises. Her love can heat the coldest day, even as I live several miles away.