The Visit

My son, Ruyd, would have been 36 years old today.  I visited the pecan tree in Goodale Park that was planted with some of his ashes. Over the past nine years it has grown tall and broad creating another oasis for Comfesters seeking shade near the Main Stage. There’s a little bronze plaque installed at the base illustrated with the small relief of a squirrel holding an acorn. Ruyd always had a thing for squirrels. A couple splotches of guano had landed on the metal and I cleaned them off with spit on my fingertips. On previous trips, I would talk to the spirit I imagined inhabiting the tree. Today, I was silent, remembering a recent radio discussion of the poem  “On The Nature Of Things”  by Lucretius and his revolutionary idea, for a Roman, that death is the end of a person. There is no one there to talk to anymore. The living are left with only memories. So I just stood there and gazed at the thick trunk and the profusion of thin green leaves.

Suddenly, a squirrel descended from the branches above. His headfirst scramble froze right in front of me as he clung to the rough bark of the trunk, seeming to defy gravity, with his tail flicking in the air above his head that was cocked up to allow his big eyes to look straight into mine. He stayed in that precarious position for what seemed an extraordinary amount of time considering how close he was to me. He showed no fear of me. On the contrary, he seemed mesmerized by me. I stood still and silent, meeting his stare, returning whatever effort he was making to connect with me. And then, I smiled.