Maybe it is strange, but I think even these dead things are beautiful, I thought, glancing around at the dead trees, dead bushes, dead grasses, and dry-looking creek-bed.

I opened my mouth to say it out loud, but I thought better of it. My sister and I were taking a walk along a path by our house. She would understand, I knew, but we were talking about something else, and I didn't want to interrupt.

Instead I continued our conversation and looked out at the scene before me with pleasure and wonder. The sky was blue--not the deep blue of summer, but the light, faded blue of the first days of winter. There were no clouds, and it was only a little chilly. The green pines stood out against the bare, brown trees and the tannish golden, long grasses. At one particular point in our walk, the mountains near our home were visible in all their deep blue, snow-capped glory.

I love the landscape of my home. I love the rolling grasses and the vast, stretching plains on one side of us, and the majestic, peaked mountains on the other. I love the dry, dry air and the chill of every morning--even in summer. I love the way you can see the horizon almost everywhere you go outside of the urban places. I love how big and magnificent the sky is--how visible it is here. I love the seasons--snow in the winter, flowers in the spring, hot days in the summer, and the gorgeous turning of the leaves in the fall. I love the open spaces, where you can sit and watch the sunrise and the sunset, and where the sky envelopes you at night in a blanket of stars.

My sister asked me a question and jolted me from my thoughts.

I answered her and we walked on.

I looked around me again. If everything remained dead, I do not think I would find it so beautiful, as I have never found the beetle-infested, scorched forests in the mountains to be beautiful.

I wondered whether I would find the night beautiful if the day never came, and thought of how it is easier to appreciate health when I have known sickness. And don't I find the genuine smiles of my friend to be so incredibly sweet because I have often seen her face shadowed in grief and pain?

Maybe then, I thought, this death surrounding me seemed so beautiful for more than the plain and striking color-scheme and the fittingness of it all for the winter months--though I could not deny their role in my bias.

But just maybe, I thought, looking at all the death surrounding me again, I also find this landscape beautiful even in death because I know it will one day come back to life.

My neighbor lives just a little ways down the street from me, a sweet old thing, with an excitable Havanese dog that she spoils rotten. I visit her with my little brother after dinner most nights. Tonight, though, I was there by myself for whatever reason. I came in and greeted her as I usually do, and we stood in the kitchen and chatted for a while about school and work and the news. She offered me something to eat and warned me to never get old, as she did every visit before we sat in the parlor to talk some more. I stayed about an hour. My neighbor turned her front light on and told me to be safe on my way home.

The street was quiet, which was unusual now even at night, ever since the bridge reopened. Some of my neighbors had their Christmas decor up already. Ahead, I could see the streetlight at the corner near my front yard, and in the sky was a full moon. It was orange, and very, very bright, just as my neighbor said it would be earlier. It was a clear night, but there were no stars. Sometimes in the winter, you could see them very, very faintly. It was a little disappointing that they weren't visible tonight.

It was cold, and the darkness was unsettling to me, so I walked quickly up the gentle hill on the street that led to my house. Some of the lights in my other neighbors' houses were on, and I saw someone's TV tuned to Law and Order. Across the road, a stray black cat that likes to prowl around our neighborhood made himself comfy hiding near a shrub. I walked the last stretch of road to my front doorstep. Our strings of Christmas lights look pretty great. Shivering a little now, I take out my key and walk inside.

It's about 2 a.m here in my hometown and it is a cold winter night. I just stepped out for a moment and observed the only thing that is visible right now, the Fog.

This white fog is covering everything up as if trying to hide all the secrets. It made me feel trapped as if I can't go anywhere if I want to. If I will take one single step, I will be enveloped by it and it will cover me, like it has enveloped everything. It will chill my bones and make me tremble.

There will be no trace of me as there is no trace of the trees and the neighboring houses that are covered in fog and have become invisible. The fog is so dense that even the path leading from my doorway is not visible to me. It is as if there is nothing else left in the world but this Fog.

I couldn't help but feel the world closing in on me and for a second I am unable to breathe. This is the time that made me aware how much I ignore the beauty of the normal world around me.

This situation makes me realize that this is identical to what we feel in our day to day life. We take our loved ones care and love for us for granted, and then when they are no longer with us, when we are separated by the 'Fog' of this life, we miss them. Then we crave their touch and their support to get through the panic and the problems.

I couldn't think anymore. The cold was making me numb and the fog was scaring me, so I did what every other human do. Turned away from my problems, walked inside my house and closed the door on the FOG.