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Another morning of nature and photography was in order, so I headed out to Bear Valley in Point Reyes.
The low clouds tinged with scarlet were just gray stipples a few moments before this shot. A cavalcade of coyotes cried out at what seemed like the exact moment the fire went into the clouds.
Life, in all its chaotic, fragile and stout incarnations.
This mossy old bay laurel tree had fallen over Bear Valley Creek, making a perfect home for a joyous, green hair-do of polypody ferns.
I headed up the Meadow Trail a ways to see if I could find any interesting fungi to photograph, but had no luck. The most striking thing I found were a couple of huge, excellent hazels. I can only hope the hazel growing in my back yard grows as large, and that after I've moved away, the new renters will let it grow. (This is not a photo of the hazels!)
Among the several grandfather Douglas firs towering in the forest, there are also some excellent, lichen-bearded trees that catch the morning sun along the Bear Valley Trail.
I was driving to Olema Marsh when the phone rang, subduing the music playing on the car's stereo. I didn't recognize the number, so I didn't answer, but it rang a long time and I finally caved. The caller hung up at the same time I answered, but called right back.
It was a mix-up. The caller was asking for my father, who just passed away last Saturday, at my sister's home in the Chicago area. The caller was a truck driver who was supposed to pick up some medical equipment (probably the oxygen concentrator) that the hospice had folks given us.
My sister was at work, swamped with patients, but like me, my brother-in-law is taking bereavement leave this week, so I was able to text him and my sister and put them in touch with the truck driver. My father, a lifelong journalist born in 1925, would have loved the awesomeness of a cellphone signal being instantaneously relayed to Olema Marsh from Orland Park.
I don't think I've ever "gotten over" the death of a loved one, but I treasure having some time to integrate the loss into my own life history, to let it settle into the wholeness of my own being. Life is an awesome gift, made infinitely more precious by the fact that, someday, it ends.
My father's spirit rises to meet the sky. A cavalcade of coyotes cries out with yips and howls.
I kiss my father's forehead knowing I will never see him again. I don't even know if he hears my last words:
"Good-bye, Dad."
(Obit.)
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