“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s ultimate agent of change.” ~ Steve Jobs

Another thing I remember about Todd was how well he could see. I remember him as a small child often pointing to an airplane in the sky — an airplane that was completely invisible to the rest of the family at the time. And I remember that we all thought he was simply imagining things until, sure enough, that very plane would fly close enough for us to see it a few minutes later.

 

And whenever we would travel places together, I remember Todd often standing still and looking out towards the horizon. Whether it was the Grand Canyon or the coast of Hawaii or the Olympic Peninsula or Lookout Valley (near Chattanooga, pictured below), I remember him often pausing and being very still — using that vision of his to really Look … to really See.

 

I’m sure part of this silent gazing was that which is familiar to all of us — simply appreciating the grandness of it all; simply standing briefly in overwhelmed awe at the Beauty that surrounds us in every moment of our lives; simply looking in humble amazement upon that with which we have been so richly blessed … simply looking, well, simply.

And yet sometimes I wonder if Todd’s Vision didn’t extend beyond the material in those moments … Sometimes I wonder if he could actually See where we were heading as individuals – or as a society – or as a species – or as a planet.

 

You see, Todd cared deeply for the Earth. He loved nature with great passion and without condition, and he would always become moderately irate (even downright pissed off) whenever he would talk about the damage humanity was doing to it … It was as though he could literally SEE us destroying it; and as though he could literally FEEL the Earth’s pain while we did so.

 

Maybe that kind of Clarity comes to all those who truly, profoundly Care … Maybe we could all see those airplanes if we really paid attention to the heavens, and maybe we would all start living just a little more respectfully if we actually started Loving our planet the way Todd did.

I wonder …

“The call of death is a call of Love.
Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative,
if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms
of life and transformation.” ~ Hermann Hesse

 

“To be positive in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage and kindness … The future is an infinite succession of present moments, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is painful or wrong around us, is itself a marvelous victory.” ~ inspired by Howard Zinn

 

Filed under: A Tribute to Todd by Scaughdt