Those of you who attended church on Sunday the 15th know that we had a live reading of The Fall of Freddie the Leaf, instead of a video presentation, for our dramatic moment. The author credit was accidentally left out of the order of service, so we wanted to take a moment, and let you all know that while I DID make a couple of adaptations to make it flow better as a three-voice reading, I didn’t write the book.

It’s actually a children’s book that was written by Leo Buscaglia, who also offered the world his book on LOVE.

Dr. Buscaglia may have been a life-long member of the Roman Catholic church, but his ideas were universal, and ‘Freddie’ has been used to help numerous children and adults begin to process the idea of death.

A copy of the book has been donated to the UUCOC library.

Here’s an excerpt, from the end of the story:

Freddie landed on a clump of snow. It somehow felt soft and even warm. In this new position he was more comfortable than he had ever been. He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He did not know that that Spring would follow Winter and that the snow would melt into water. He did not know that what appeared to be his useless dried self would join with the water and serve to make the tree stronger. Most of all, he did not know that there, asleep in the tree and the ground, were already plans for new leaves in the Spring.