I was sitting on a stone wall in my neighborhood, resting before resuming my trudge up the long steep hill home with my groceries, when I noticed a leaf fluttering to the ground. An oak leaf, dried and golden brown, from one of the gnarled old oaks on my block. I watched it fall and then it struck the asphalt with the distinct “click” of a kiss. Then it rested for a moment on the street before the breeze deployed it further down the hill.
A noteworthy moment! How often before, I wondered, have I paid attention to the sound a leaf makes when it falls? But I’m paying attention lately to a lot of things I never did before.
Where did the leaf come from? From its oak tree, of course, but I meant, where was it before the oak tree birthed it? For that matter, where was it going now that its oak tree had shed it? I knew the answer to that one: the wind, a force of erosion, and the leaf’s steady collision with road and sidewalk would slowly, inexorably erode it, chipping away at its structure little by little until a moment came when the leaf was no more. The leaf that kissed the street would ride the wind to eternity.
Such are the thoughts of an old man with cancer whose life is largely behind him. One thinks of imponderables. Where was the leaf before it existed? Where is the leaf when it is ground to molecules and atoms? Where will I be when the cancer takes me? What is the sound of one hand clapping?
I thought, too, as I watched the evening news last night, of the New York City Police Officer, Didarul Islam, may his name be a blessing, who was murdered yesterday in a mass shooting. He too was a leaf, a vibrant, beautiful living being whose termination was caused, not by a natural process, but by a monster, who thankfully is no longer alive. I think of the idiots—yes, they are idiots—in Oakland who scrawl obscenities like ACAB on sidewalks and lampposts, and “If you’re a cop, kill yourself” (which I saw near Kaiser Permanente), and I think, how did your parents give birth to you? What moral instinct are you lacking? Were you born without it, or was it suffocated along the way? Every cop shot to death by psychopaths is a crime against humanity. Every death is terrible, of course, but I cannot agree with John Dunne when he writes “Each man’s death diminishes me,” for a confess I do not feel diminished when I hear of the death of a gangbanger or car hijacker or some other fool who got caught in the act by police and, trying to get away, found himself shot and bled out on a sidewalk. I feel bad for that person’s loved ones, but personally diminished? No. Glad the earth is rid of one more monster.
And I mourn more than ever all the dead cops who have given their lives for us in the line of duty. All 54 of the Oakland officers who have been slain over the years. Every one of these warriors, who went to work one day expecting to return home safe and sound but never did. Those are the lives I grieve; they are why, whenever I can, I tell officers, “Thank you for your service and protection.” May the fallen ride the wind to eternity.
Steve Heimoff