Lost one tree, gained another

Following are three short stories that seem quite unrelated, but they converge at the end in a wonderfully meaningful way. At least it's meaningful for our family.

Gail and I moved into our house in Waterdown in July of 1997 (the day before my 28th birthday), almost two years after we were married and two weeks before I started working at Sybase (where I still work). The next summer, we hired a landscaping designer to help us do something different with our front yard. We changed the shapes of some of the gardens and planted a bunch of new things including a euonymous bush, a standard pee gee hydrangea (which lasted about ten years before dying), a dwarf Japanese cedar that I loved (but it also died after only a year or two), and a purple-leaf sandcherry tree. The sandcherry wasn't a sapling when we bought it – I don't remember for sure but I have a feeling it was already 5-6 feet tall. It thrived in front of the house and we've loved the purple leaves and pink flowers ever since. But a couple of years ago we started to wonder if it was getting too big. Every year we had to trim off some branches and cut it back and eventually, the only branches left were huge and thick and not many actual leaves were growing on it. It was also maybe ten feet from the house, and we wondered if the roots could cause problems. By this point the top of the tree was up to the second-storey window, so it had grown quite a bit. This spring, it looked pretty sickly with mostly branches and very few leaves so we made the tough decision to take it down. Two weeks ago, Gail's dad came down with his chain saw and we removed the tree.

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In Ontario, public schools test all grade 4 students to see if they should be identified as "exceptional", which includes things like autism, giftedness, speech impairments, as well as other physical or learning disabilities. We became familiar with this process when Ryan was identified as gifted three years ago. He continued at Allan A. Greenleaf public school (where he had been since kindergarten) for grade five, but we found he was "coasting" and not trying very hard. He just wasn't that engaged. We decided to move him to a special class for gifted children (at a different school), and he's been there for two years and doing pretty well.

Nicky just finished grade four at Greenleaf, and we received his test results about a month ago – he is also gifted. (Warning: proud daddy bragging ahead) In the Visual Comprehension test, the school VP said that Nicky's score was in the 99.9th percentile "or even higher" across the entire Hamilton-Wentworth district school board. This means that on average, of every thousand kids that took the test, at most one of them scored higher than Nicky. (OK, bragging all done.) We talked to his teacher and the learning resource teacher, and they both thought the gifted class would be the best place for Nicky. We agreed, and requested that he be moved there. They offered him a spot and since Greenleaf doesn't have a gifted class (which is why Ryan moved), Nicky will be attending Dundas Central public school in the fall. For the first time since 2003, we will have no children attending Greenleaf next year.

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When Ryan started kindergarten at Greenleaf back in the fall of 2003, Gail decided she wanted to know more about the school and the community so she went out to a couple of school council meetings. You don't need to join the council to attend the meetings so she didn't actually join, just observed. The next year, she decided to join the council and at the first meeting agreed to be "co-chair". The school had had co-chairs for several years and it seemed to be working fine, so they continued having two. She was co-chair the next year as well, and then in the third year, the guy who had been the other co-chair left because his kids had all moved on to high school. Someone else stepped up as co-chair for one year but after that Gail just did it herself, and has ever since. This past year was the eighth year that Gail has been chair or co-chair of the school council at Greenleaf. She knows all the teachers and staff on a first-name basis and is involved in just about every fundraiser and event that the school puts on.

The school has "free family movie night" once a month, where kids and their families and friends can come to the school on a Friday night and watch a movie. The school council sells popcorn and drinks and it's a pretty popular event. That was Gail's brainchild. Every February, the school holds a spaghetti dinner and silent auction, which is very popular and raises thousands of dollars for the school. Gail helped create that as well and until this past year when she was busy with her own studies, she co-ordinated the event every year. Make no mistake, Gail had lots of help from other parents and members of the council, and I've been volun-told myself on numerous occasions when she needed help, but nobody has done more for the Greenleaf community over the past eight years than Gail has. All the teachers love her, and if I had a nickel for every time one of them told me how great she was or how lucky I was, I'd be a wealthy man indeed.

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In the words of Bill Cosby, I told you those stories to tell you this one.

On the second-last day of school this year, the librarian at Greenleaf (Nirogi) called Gail and asked her if she would come to the final assembly of the year the next morning. Gail knew that something was up, since parents don't usually go to the end-of-school assembly. But we also knew that this would be the last day we had kids at Greenleaf, and they would likely be doing something to say goodbye to Gail. We were right. They did a little thing for each of the five or six teachers that were leaving, and then they brought Gail up. A grade eight girl who has been involved with the student council also got up and read some stuff about how much Gail has done for the school, how much they appreciate everything she's done, and how the school won't be the same without her. After much applause from the teachers and students, Gail got up and said a few unscripted thank-yous through tears.

But the best part is that in Gail's honour, the school will be planting a purple-leaf sandcherry tree behind the school in the fall. Nirogi knew how much we like the sandcherry in front of our house, so that's what she picked to plant for Gail. She didn't even know that we had had to take ours down.

As much as we're excited about the new opportunities awaiting Nicky next year in his new school, we're very sad that we're leaving the Greenleaf community. But the fact that for the next however-many years there will be a tree at the school that was planted for Gail is supremely cool. We may not have kids at the school anymore, and I don't know if there'll be a plaque or anything near the tree with her name on it, but we'll know. And every now and again we'll stop in at the school for no other reason than to see Gail's tree.

Live long and prosper

I saw a posting on facebook recently about Lonesome George, the giant tortoise who passed away last week. He was the last of his species, and some comments lamented the loss of another species from the planet and talked about how humans are destroying the habitats of many animal species, which I cannot disagree with. But then I saw this comment (emphasis mine):

I'm not much into doomsday prophecies, but I do think that if we don't reduce our number VERY soon, nature will do it for us. Perhaps a world-wide epidemic, or mass-psychosis causing war. This is not the right time to make people live longer and treat infertility. Too stupid for words.

As someone whose mother (in her 70's) is currently fighting cancer and whose sister recently had a baby via a surrogate because of infertility (also due to cancer treatment), I think making people live longer and treating infertility is not only a good idea, it's our duty as human beings.

Firstly, I thought it funny that this person says they're "not much into doomsday prophesies" and then proceeds to make one. The infertility thing I disagree with, but I suppose I can understand the logic. There are lots of unwanted children born around the world, and infertile people usually have the option of adopting one of them, rather than making a whole new one. But this is a very personal choice and who are you to decide that someone else should not have a child who is biologically theirs just because they have to jump through a few more medical hoops to do it than the average person?

But the other comment is mind-boggling. How do we as a species not try our hardest to make people live longer? What does this person suggest we do? Abandon medical research? Deny the elderly medical care? Don't bother curing childhood diseases that we can cure like polio and smallpox because that reduces the number of people who survive to adulthood (and therefore the number that will procreate)? A girl we know survived life-saving transplant surgery when she was six months old; she is now fifteen. Should they have just let her die as a baby? Hell, I had my own life-saving surgery two years ago – should they not have bothered?

Too stupid for words indeed.

A child's perception of time

Planet-watching

"I swear, this is the weirdest planet I've ever watched," said Yargo as he rolled his chair back, shaking his head.

"Which planet is that?" asked Gren indifferently. The planet Gren was watching was in the early stages of a major war, and she didn't want Yargo's problems to distract her from watching it unfold.

"They call it 'Earth'. Population about 7 billion, one moon, five or six big land masses plus a big chunk of ice at the bottom. You know the one – in the system with nine planets but they just decided they only have eight?"

"Oh, them," said Gren. "Where that idiot Drood crash-landed a bunch of years ago?"

"Yeah, that's the one. We got him and his kid out just before the humans found them. His kid was playing with some rocks when we got there and we just left them standing. Do you believe it? The rocks are still there and those nuts are still talking about it. They call it 'Stonehenge'. Anyway, that's not the weird part."

Gren realized that Yargo wasn't going to let it go until he told her about it, so she turned her monitor off and sat back. She closed her middle eye, as she always did when she was bored. "So what's the weird part?"

Yargo sighed. "Their scientists have made so much progress over the past couple of their centuries. They've travelled to their moon, sent probes to the next planet out, and can send messages between any two points on the planet within seconds. Their doctors can take pieces out of one person and put them into another person and have both people survive. They're slowly but surely starting to solve problems like hunger and disease, and they're realizing that they're slowly killing their planet with heat and are starting to do something about it, though they've got a ways to go on that one. They're even taking some baby steps into the world of quantum physics."

"Sounds like they're making fairly standard progress. Cold fusion will likely be their next big discovery, right? So what's weird about it?" asked Gren.

"They still have all the old superstitions that far more primitive societies have. Supernatural beings, healing people with magic, people who claim to see the future, all that kind of thing."

"So? Lots of planets have different cultures that are at different levels of development."

"But that's the thing" said Yargo. "This is all within the same culture, the same country, often the same town. You could easily have a nuclear physicist living right next door to someone who makes a living convincing people that they have some kind of energy field flowing through their body and he can manipulate it and cure diseases. It's the juxtaposition that's the weird part."

Oh, here he goes, thought Gren to herself. He's using the big words. Means he's getting all worked up. "But once their scientists figure out that there is no such energy field, all of that will go away. Happens all the time on planets all over the galaxy."

"No!" exclaimed Yargo, clearly agitated now. "They have explained it! They know there's no such energy field, but millions keep believing it anyway. They've done study after study and there's zero evidence that this stuff works, but it's still a huge industry. You wanna know the funny part?"

Not really, thought Gren, but she knew he was going to tell her anyway.

"There are people who believe that you can mix stuff in water and then keep adding water so many times that by the time you've finished mixing it, there's none of the original stuff left. They believe that the water remembers the properties of the stuff and so it can be used as a medicine. The less of the original stuff in the water, the more effective it is." Yargo laughed.

Gren got up and walked over to the foam machine. She poured herself a tall glass, her third of the morning. She looked at Yargo to see if he wanted one as well, but he was staring at his monitor again. She quietly made her way back to her station, hoping he'd just continue watching and stop his little rant, though she had to admit that this water memory thing was pretty funny. They'd heard some doozies over their years of planet-watching, but that was one of the more original ones. But she'd had enough of Yargo's weird little planet. She wanted nothing more than to just watch the war while she enjoyed her foam. She flipped the switch and saw the screen come back on, then closed her middle eye again as Yargo continued.

"Early in most of these civilizations we watch, they can't explain all kinds of natural phenomena, like lightning or tornados, or health-related things like diseases or even death. They have no idea what causes any of them, so they make up imaginary spirits and things like that." Yargo waved his arms in the air, conducting an invisible orchestra. "Eventually they figure out what's really causing these things and the superstitious thoughts are no longer necessary, so they get abandoned. Eventually, they look back and laugh at what their ancestors used to believe."

"But these humans, I don't get them. Their scientists explain things to the point where the magic isn't necessary anymore, but people continue to believe it anyway. I think many of them understand that their beliefs and their science are disparate, but they manage to keep things separate in their minds anyway. But those people aren't the problem. There are many who actively try to dissuade people from believing the scientists."

That got Gren's attention. She opened all three eyes and spun around. "What? Why? What's the point of that?"

"Well, as I said some make their living selling this stuff. If you're selling magic bracelets or ineffective "remedies" or energy field manipulation or whatever and scientists say it doesn't work, you want people to believe you and not them otherwise you're out of business, aren't you?"

"So they're all crooks?"

"Well, no. There are lots who honestly believe it really works, likely because the human brain is really weird. You can give people something that has no medicinal ingredients at all but if you tell them it does and they believe it strongly enough, it can actually have a real, measurable effect."

Gren was really starting to find these humans interesting. Her war completely forgotten, she asked "Sorry, what? You can give them fake medicine and it works?"

"Yup."

"So what the hell's the point of having doctors?"

"Well, it doesn't actually cure things, it's more for temporary relief of symptoms. It doesn't always work that well, and it works differently for different people, and sometimes it doesn't work at all. It's weird."

Gren laughed. "I imagine all of these energy field people would be out of work if human doctors knew about this."

"They do know! They call it the 'placebo effect'. They've been studying it for two hundred years. Many of them even know that this is what allows all of these so-called 'alternative medicines' to appear to work. But the people who believe in these supposed 'therapies' think the scientists and the medical community are in some kind of conspiracy to keep people sick."

"What? Why?" said Gren again.

"They say it's because the doctors make more money from the medicines they have than they would make from the cures they're covering up."

"That's hilarious."

"I know, right? So millions of scientists and doctors and nurses all over the planet are supposed to be involved in this huge co-ordinated cover-up to keep people sick. And they're manipulating the results of every study done everywhere so that it looks like these alternative therapies don't work and their expensive medicines and treatments do. And over the last hundred years, not one person has had a change of heart and stepped forward to expose the conspiracy."

"Well, of course not," agreed Gren, putting her foam glass down to avoid spilling it as she shook with laughter, "the doctors would have to kill them to keep them quiet, wouldn't they? Probably arrange to have them overdose on that memory water! Or would that be 'underdose'?"

Gren and Yargo continued to laugh until their boss stuck his head in the doorway. "Everything OK in here?" he asked, unsmiling.

"It's all good, boss", said Yargo as he rolled his chair back to his station.

Gren went back to her screen, watching the war continue, wondering whether the people on Yargo's planet made any more sense than the ones killing each other on hers.