What autumn teaches about loss, and what children understand.

I explained the biology: in autumn, trees stop producing chlorophyll — the molecule that makes leaves green and, more importantly, converts sunlight to energy. As chlorophyll breaks down, the other pigments that were always there — the yellows and oranges, the anthocyanins that produce red — become visible for the first time. The colour of autumn is not something added to the leaves. It is what was underneath the green all along.

She sat with this for a moment. Then she said: 'So they're most themselves right before they die?'

I am a biologist and I try not to anthropomorphise plant processes. But I didn't correct her. Because what she said is true in a way that the biological statement alone doesn't capture. The leaf is not 'most itself' — leaves don't have selves. But the colour that was masked by the functional necessity of producing energy is revealed at the moment that necessity ends. The ending is what allows the seeing.

The tree does not mourn its leaves. The ending is what allows the seeing of what was there. My daughter understood this without being told.

The tree does not mourn its leaves. The ending is what allows the seeing of what was there. My daughter understood this without being told.

My daughter understood this without being told.