Editorial Hawk's message

By Eric Dolson, publisher

It's been more than a month since the blue envelope hit my desk at the office.

But just now, here at home, from a tree on the opposite side of the creek, a Red Tail Hawk drops silent toward a gopher on a line so straight and shallow it could have been drawn with a pencil and ruler.

There's a small puff of dust when he strikes. Lingering on the ground, he tears at his meal, then flies heavy back to the branch on the rust-bark pine across the meadow.

It's hard to know who to root for in these interactions. The hawk has to eat, the gopher is more than just food. That's life, I feign detachment, it is just death, it is life and death and that is what we are, I tell myself, this shouldn't provoke feelings.

The blue envelope is still on my desk. From a woman I long called my sister. Our families were close, her parents and my parents, we four kids a cloud of chaos on bikes and pogo sticks with ball gloves and hysterical laughter after fights over who got the most ice cream.

Like one extended family in two houses, we were together every day. Time has sweetened the blackberries we ate back then, while years knock thorns from the vine.

She wrote more than a month ago to say her dad (I called him uncle, he taught me to laugh) had lung cancer, it would be a good time to come down to San Francisco, though perhaps later would be fine.

Family obligations, not this week, perhaps next, the blue envelope was still on my desk when next week came and with it the e-mail that Jack was failing faster than expected, her twin sister was flying out that day, there wasn't much time.

I left Sisters immediately, at the same hour her sister left Baltimore, the three of us met north of San Francisco at midnight, I don't know if Jack knew we were there. His eyes were open but his breathing was difficult and at 5 a.m. he was gone.

What hawk swooped out of a pine and grasped Jack in its talons? It is just life, I told myself, it is life and death and that is what we are, but I couldn't feign detachment this time.

Instead, I drove the sisters to the hospital and the store and through the dozen other errands, I was the driver, I was helper and hiding from deep loss. I helped Mom write his obituary.

After a quick round trip home to Sisters I was back in San Francisco for the memorial, meaningful but somehow superficial, we can't celebrate this man because he is not here, why didn't I do a better job of celebrating Jack while he was living?

Grieving, I knew, would come unexpected, tears to be triggered by an event unrelated and certainly unforeseen.

It came about eight days later. I was reading the morning paper at the breakfast table with the dog under my feet when our old blind gray cat screamed once, like a cat fight but over too quick.

The dog and I hit the door at the same time, we couldn't see the cat but a coyote ran from the yard through the tall grass and wildflowers, away from the creek. It looked back at the dog and me with reluctance, then decided it wasn't worth it and ran off.

Less than 20 minutes later the dog herded the cat back into the yard, still walking but tongue hanging out and bleeding from his broken mouth, badly hurt. More than a week later, we may yet have to let him go.

It is hard to feign detachment, but anger is irrational. The coyote has to eat, but my cat is more than just food. It is just life and death and that is what we are, I tell myself, again, my mantra of this late summer.

Understanding this seems so hollow, a false shield. The hawk and the coyote have their place, the gopher and my old cat have theirs. Dad is gone, friends to follow. Understanding is irrelevant. It hurts.

On the news, another couple of Americans die in Iraq, another teen in a car wreck between Sisters and Bend. At first I try to find detachment, it is just death, it is life and death and that is what we are.

But friends are losing parents, we are all losing friends. The hawks and coyotes are plucking us one by one.

Detachment is barren and no remedy for pain. Living without love is one lousy option, and you can't have love without loss.

I can't throw out the blue envelope that sits on my desk. It reminds me not to look at life from the window of a train.

It sits on my desk and burns like a small cut burns when you wash dishes, reminding that life's joys and pains are one and the same, and so damn short.

He is gone, and I miss him.