Brad Waters, on the event of his funeral

Brad Waters

The last time I saw Brad, Anne and I had just driven him home from the hospital. I offered my hand as he got out of the car, but he ignored it. He walked up the stairs to his house, clutching both railings to maintain his balance. (He always did that, my kids told me.) And then, for me, he was gone.

On one of the Over the Hill Gang hikes in 2011 we were hiking above Pearl Ridge (I think) when the trail suddenly ended. Instead of turning around, we bushwhacked down a very steep incline, full of plants and rocks and pukas. Brad gently lifted Zoe down some of the steepest boulders. The walk up the other side of the valley was also steep, although there was a path. Brad moved up the hill svery lowly and deliberately with his dogs. He met us later at the top.

There was this quality of loving persistence to Brad. When he looked at plants on the trail, he looked carefully. He could name each plant: in Latin, in English, in Hawaiian. He knew each plant’s history, its uses. Often, he took a photo. When the photos had been downloaded, they were often surprising. A fern at such close proximity you could see lines of spores, some open and some closed, running down the vein like natural Pacmen. His photographs often made the ordinary world seem strange, so you could realize that it is.

There is a poem by the Japanese zen poet, Ikkyo, from the 14^th century, about living and dying. It goes like this:

Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going--

Two simple happenings

That got entangled.

I’m grateful that my two simple happenings overlapped with Brad’s.