I have been crying a lot lately. There is no shortage of despair as the worst of the human primate is on full display not only around the world, but in America. The worst of the human primate is running our country--into the ground--with apparent glee.

If I became a biologist. a botanist, it was because of a movie called "Jane", I watched it when I was ten. The rural farm I thought we moved to was being destroyed on a daily basis by bulldozers and terrifyingly giant earthmovers. Nobody told the kids in the neighborhood then that ours was the first street of what would be bulldozed into creation--essentially an entire new city. I grew up watching that beautiful thousand acre farm get destroyed. Then I spent my days in a Walden's bookstore in the mall where my mother would get a job after the farm had been destroyed--in part for the mall. She would drop me off there and go to work. I would spend hours on the floor looking at books, some with pictures of beautiful old farms and woods and apple orchards. Pictures, all that were left of these things in my life. When the manager would glance over at me, piles of brand-new books on either side, I would put the books back and wander the mall. Once I wandered the farm, the wood, and the apple orchards. Now I wandered the mall.

Part of why I started wandering in the first place was because of this beautiful courageous fascinating young woman named Jane. I was transfixed. It seemed like everyone was then. It was the talk of my school. I donned binoculars and hat. Notepad and pencil. Maybe a Ginger Ale for later. I put it all in a bag because we didn't have backpacks then. I carried my field gear in a paper bag. Soon I was documenting dead animals, ravens and crows among the bulldozers and earth movers where once I documented fairy slipper orchids. My expeditions were a failure compared to Jane's. Maybe one day...One thing I did know. I wanted to be like Jane Goodall.

Something solid and good and strong and important has gone out of our world with the loss of two outstanding souls, both beautiful. Robert Redford was also my first boyfriend, though he didn't know it. A photo of Jane Goodall was pinned next to Robert Redford's in my pink ten year old's bedroom. He would also influence my life-long struggle to try and protect my own species from destroying its own planet. The human primate is an absurd creation. Truly. Then came Carl Sagan and Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner and Ed Abbey...

That they had to die at a time like this. Then again...

Something has gone out of our world. Something fine and precious. Extraordinary and necessary. And I grieve. I grieve we may never see the likes of the two of them again. Rest in peace our dear stewards of earth. We hope you walk among the wildest of flowers. We will miss you. The earth will miss you. Two of her finest advocates are gone. That we can fill your hiking boots...we can only hope. RIP.