“Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.” ~Lucy Maud Montgomery The following essay began as a journal entry after my father died. Later, it was published in the October 1998 edition of Mary Engelbreit’s Home Companion. The piece is also included in my book, Writing Home. Lately I’ve been thinking of these lines from Anne Mary Lawler’s poem about the seasons: October dresses in flame and gold, like a woman afraid of growing old. This is a potent month for memories. Yesterday I watched while my son and the children next door tumbled like acrobats in the fallen leaves. (Is there a kid in the Midwest who…