David McElroy

Autumn is about death and dying. It’s about clearing away things which are finished — before a period of dormancy and healing can give way to rebirth.

See those yellow leaves which are slowly developing brown spots and shriveling? I’ve been watching those leaves and the ones around them for about seven or eight months.

A limb of a huge tree has a tiny offshoot which hangs near my front porch. Every time I leave the house, I see those leaves. I watched them grow from nothing last spring. As the weather started turning warm and everything in nature started coming alive again, I saw tiny shoots of green that turned into beautiful shade for my yard.

By summer, they were beautifully lush and green. They joined with thousands and thousands of other leaves to form an amazing canopy — seemingly just for me — and they were a delight to see each time I stepped outside and started down my steps.

But this is what they look like Sunday afternoon. Are they already dead? Are they still alive but slowly dying? I don’t know. All I know is that nature dictates that what was once bright green new life has once again gone through a cycle of amazing vibrancy and is now heading toward death.

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For a moment Thursday afternoon, I didn’t even feel like myself. I felt angry because I wanted to control a situation that I couldn’t control.

My anger turned to ugly words. I didn’t lash out very much. It was just a couple of sentences, but I was completely wrong. I had enough sense to realize — even as I was speaking — that I was handling a situation poorly. I walked out before I could say anything more and make things worse.

I went and sat down in a room by myself. I was flooded with a variety of feelings. I was angry, frustrated, hurt and — within a minute of so — ashamed.

It doesn’t matter what the problem was or what caused it. I’ve been thinking ever since then about a terrible pattern that I see in myself every now and then — not often, but more often than I like to admit.

When I am feeling especially needy in the emotional sense, I start to feel the need to be controlling. When I need something emotionally that I can’t get by myself, that turns to frustration and I express my frustration by trying to control others around me. Something about taking control can let me feel less needy — as though I’ve found a way to force my will into reality.

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No loving parent ever decides that Facebook and other social media are more important than his or her children. Loving parents just don’t consciously decide such things.

But some people let tiny decisions add up — one after another — until they’re putting the online world before the children they love. Not in big ways. The children are still being fed and clothed. They’re still getting where they need to go.

But some parents end up depriving them of the most important thing they have to give — their loving attention.

Brandie Johnson of Lakeside, Calif., realized recently that her boys needed more of her attention — and she realized that was going to require that she put her phone down more often and pay more attention to her real world than to her virtual world.

Last November, Johnson decided to do a small experiment with her sons. I’ll let her tell her own story, which she shared on Facebook that day and which finally found its way to me on Tuesday.

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