Hunt for Meaning in Life

This post is dedicated to my friend who died last Friday.  She was a co-worker, team leader, nature lover, kindred spirit, and a good friend.

When I heard the news of her passing, I couldn't think. I couldn't breathe.  I had to take a walk.  So I headed out with my list for this week's assignment, a scavenger hunt.  As I walked the trails, I could feel my friend with me.  She had walked these same trails, pointing out interesting things like an excited child.  That's the way she was. She was an enthusiastic nature geek.

Finding something gross wasn't hard.  There was the pile of deer heads, remnants of the CWD (chronic wasting disease) project that my husband was engaged in last winter.  They had decomposed some but were still stinking and attracting all sorts of insect life.

An on the skulls, I found something small.  A funny looking beetle, probably eating this dead stuff.  Not only small but gross!  But as I would find out, it was also fast.  As soon as I had it focused and ready to take the picture, it moved.  And quickly it disappeared inside the eye socket.

The beetle is about in the center of this photo, but out of focus.  I wish I could get better at close up photography.  My friend would have patiently waited for the animal to reappear, but I had to get moving.  I needed the fresh air and exercise to soothe my soul.

On to something important. Of course, that was all around me.  As I looked at the woods, I was reminded of how often my friend presented workshops on forests.  They are an important ecosystem in this part of the country.

The forest as an ecosystem is important, but when you get close, individual trees, like the one in the foreground, seem even more important.  Those holes can provide shelter for a variety of animals.  But the tree must also die soon.  So here I was thinking of death again.  I needed to change my mindset, so I continued on.

Finding something colorful in this gray, lifeless landscape seemed an impossible task.  But then I looked down and saw green.  The color of life and rebirth of spring.

I liked how the green was emerging out of the dead, last year's growth.  This thought gave me hope.  I felt the shadow of sadness starting to lift.

Only one more thing to find.  Something camouflaged.  I knew this would be hard by the very definition of camouflage.  Hidden from view.  I guess that is what this trek had been about all along.  How to find sense out of a loss.  How to find peace from death.  How to find meaning in life.  These things are all hidden from us.  We don't know why some die and others live on.  The only certainty is that we will all join the legions who have gone before us.  It is the cycle of life.

And then I saw it.  A barred owl on a tree branch looking exactly like a dead limb.  But as I lifted the camera, the bird flew.  I took a picture anyway.

Who's to say it is not there.  Maybe that dead limb is an owl, maybe it is not.  I choose to believe it is there, just as I choose to believe my friend had been with me on this walk in the woods, and all the other nature walks I will take.

Happy trails, my friend.