A phone call from a good friend in Victoria, B.C., today overwhelmed me with sadness and set me thinking about the fragility of everything that lives on our planet. My friend called to tell me that his thirty-one-year-old son had died of kidney failure. This writing is a tribute to Lucas and to his parents. They all suffered through the agony of Lucas’ kidney failure. The parents have to find a way to go on.

Knowing that absolutely everyone and everything dies is no great comfort when we are deep in grief. Knowing that even the giant sequoias will one day fall doesn’t help. Knowing that the ancient bristlecone pines have lived for not just decades or centuries but for millenia doesn’t mean they will never die.

I walked once among the bristlecone pines, the trees in a high forest in the White-Inyo California mountain range. Earth’s oldest living inhabitant “Methuselah” at 4,767 years, is remarkable even among bristlecone pines. It has lived a thousand years longer than any other tree. Rangers won’t point out which of the trees is Methuselah. They obviously love that old tree.

Lucas lived for only thirty-one years. His parents loved him, and perhaps that is enough to know. I confess that I don’t know what any of it means, but I suspect e.e. cummings had a hunch and spent his writing life trying to tell us.

LOVE IS A PLACE

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds