Death Is Part Of Life

The things you see when you stop to pee. I remember my first trans-USA trip with my first 35mm film camera, a Honeywell Pentax. I shot several rolls of Kodachrome, recently extinct, but didn't keep a notebook. I was headed from graduate school in Floridda to my first teaching job in California. For many years I, my students, and friends enjoyed slide shows of the habitat changes along US 90, the signs at state bourndaries, intriguing animals, etc., and my memory of exactly where is each photo was taken enhanced by remembering a particular pee stop.
Early one recent frosty morning, I had such an occasion at the top of Crescent Grade. As the urge hit while passing through Crescent Mills, I remembered a wide spot at the top of the grade where I could safely pull over. I had stopped there many times during spring in summer and discovered several new (for me) species of plants. I'm already anticipating the Diamond Clarkia that bloom there. On this particular day, I was met by the above deceased deer. It actually looked peaceful. Maybe I was confused by the feeling of sudden relief of bladder pressure. At any rate, it caused flashbacks of days spent in Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy lab with Dr. Dundee, and many sessions of dissecting frogs, pigs, and worms with my high school students over the years. For a biology student or teacher unencumbered by religion, the difference between life and death is not a sharp line. Life and death are labels in a continuum of a particular gathering of matter. Not something to fear or resent, but simply an inescapable reality. This particular deer looked really peaceful, almost as if she were aware that she'll soon become part of a living Diamond Clarkia and may then live on in that form as part of this blog.