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Liam had been putting off this walk for three months. The “Grieving Man’s Loop,” his wife Chloe had called it—a five-kilometre circuit through the state forest behind their cottage. She’d walked it every morning during her final winter, even when the oxygen tube looped under her chin like a silver necklace. He hadn't been able to set foot on the trail since she passed, last September.

He stayed until the sun sank low, turning the westerly clouds the colour of apricot jam. Then he stood, brushed the bark chips from his trousers, and began the walk home. Behind him, a pair of kangaroos emerged from the shadows to graze on the new grass—the one thing autumn always promises: that rest is not an ending, but a slow, quiet turning toward something else. season australia now

Southern Highlands, New South Wales

The first real autumn morning arrived not with a bang, but with a blue-wisped exhale. Liam stepped onto his veranda, coffee mug warming his palms, and watched his breath ghost away into a sky the colour of faded denim. After a summer of record-breaking heat—of bushfire smoke hazing the horizon and nights that refused to cool—this soft, 14-degree chill felt like a pardon. Liam had been putting off this walk for three months

He pulled a mandarin from his jacket pocket—sweet, tight-skinned, at its absolute peak. As he peeled it, the bright oil misted his fingers, and for the first time in seven months, he smiled. Not because the grief was gone, but because it had finally stopped fighting the season. He hadn't been able to set foot on