My birthday falls in November, usually bleak and naked.

But this November, many leaves, green, yellow, orange, and reddish-brown still cling to the branches. Tall asters flaunt their feathery purple petals along with the wild mums, pale pink, white and yellow.

No leaves, no flowers, No-vember?

Mother Nature prevails.

Kwan Kew Lai is an author, a Harvard medical faculty physician, an infectious disease specialist, a disaster response volunteer, an artist, and a runner.