by Jan Chaffin 1/22/2025

It was January 20, 2025-the day Martin Luther King is celebrated yearly. It was also inauguration day. This year, the flags were at half-staff to honor the recent passing of our 39^th President Jimmy Carter.

For slightly less than half the nation, today was a day of apprehension and sadness. A dramatic tonal shift was occurring with the recent election, enabling authoritarianism to an unprecedented degree in our shortish history. I was among those who felt a sense of dread at the forthcoming slew of policies designed to reverse the human and environmental protections of previous administrations.

Today was going to be a busy holiday Monday at Año Nuevo-the California State Park where I work. We are a rookery for northern elephant seals and folks travel almost as far as the elephant seals to watch the majestic wild pageant of 5,000-pound bulls battling for breeding rights with considerably less hefty 1,200-pound females who arrive each winter pregnant.

At the peak of the four-month season, thousands of seals cover the two miles of sandy dunes and beaches north of Santa Cruz. I arrived at work, prepared to be assaulted by crowds vying for coveted slots on seal tours and by a range of my own barely contained emotions.

Visitors were indeed flocking in droves to the park, perhaps seeking solace in nature, or just wanting to do something fun on their day off. It was the busiest day of the season so far, yet I felt an urgent need to see the seals for the first time this year.

I arranged for permission to walk out unguided in the early afternoon. We are situated on a point of land that typically experiences harsh winds, and what started as a chilly morning had become a gloriously sunny, mild day.

I always love walking out to the point. Passing through several ancient geologic and seismic fault zones along the way, I am awed by the unlikely immensity of life before and beyond us.

Today, prehistoric brown pelicans flew overhead, dropping down into the fresh-water pond to rinse the salt from their wings. The resilient Monterey Bay sparkled to the left and the deep, guttural staccato of bulls could be heard in the distance. I passed between groups of 15 or more people and began my climb up the tallest dune that we call “Lawrence of Arabia”.

At the top, I paused to take in the view of the sand below and the fire-charred hills off to the right. The markers guided me to the closest viewing beach called South Point where two groups were observing a large colony of several hundred seals.

There is a lot of drama in an elephant seal colony. The dynamics and interactions are fascinating to watch and ever-changing. The adult males battle for the slim chance of mating by establishing a hierarchy of dominance based on size and ferocity. At the same time as all that male posturing and feuding, the females are strategically placing themselves out of harm’s way of galumphing bulls, delivering then protecting their nursing pups. Sometimes, bulls will inadvertently crush the newborn pups in their testosterone-fueled drive to fight and mate.

Elephant seals are an old species, surviving for millions of years despite near extinction by humans in the early 20^thcentury.  At the same time each year, they return to their same rookeries and the humans who once hunted them now clamor to observe them.

The groups were intently watching a male attempt to mate with a female and several male pairs fighting to the right of the viewing area when suddenly one of the tour leaders near the front edge of the beach exclaimed: “Look, there’s a birth!” Immediately, we all turned to watch. Elephant seal births tend to be swift and seemingly painless events, however this female was struggling to extract her pup, who was slowly emerging flippers first.

After a few minutes, with all of us transfixed, she completed her delivery, and the little black pup emerged to quiet cheers. An umbilical cord was still attached when two females with pups of their own suddenly started biting at the newborn. We gasped in shock at this behavior, concerned for the pup’s well-being.

Fortunately, the newborn’s mom protested and successfully fended off the other females’ assaults. She then began attending to her pup although we hadn’t seen her start to nurse yet. Sometimes, if there is no immediate pair bonding, the mother will reject the pup, and it will starve to death.

Soon we could see placenta covering the sand and from all directions, a giant flock of western seagulls expertly descended to feed on the afterbirth. It was time for the groups to move on, but no one wanted to leave. I’d worked at Año Nuevo for over eight years and never witnessed a birth.

After a three mile hike, I returned to work buoyed by the experience. The fate of the world worried me a little less and I had to chuckle that the aggressive fighting and mating behaviors of the male seals nearby had taken a back seat to the miracle of birth.

There is no guarantee that the mom will bond with her pup or that the pup will survive to adulthood, but I had new-found hope that because all living systems strive for homeostasis, perhaps our own nascent species might survive this latest threat.

By Jan Chaffin May 25, 2025

The New York Times recently publishes a challenge—to look at a 16^th Century tapestry for ten minutes uninterrupted. It’s an eye-opening endeavor. Reading on-line, I use the iPad to enlarge sections and really zoom in. It is amazing to see so many details that would be missed from a distant, causal viewing. Patterns and symbols are repeated prolifically. Each is apparently ripe with contextual meaning and each element contributes to the grand design.

Afterwards, I glance around my memento-filled home and settle on a large photo taken by my cousin Loy of my mom’s family sitting around a dining room table on Mother’s Day. I decide to gaze at it for as long as I can. While Loy is an accomplished photographer, the image is perhaps less inspired than a famous work of art. However, I become mesmerized by the moment of nuanced interplay he captures between the diners.

There is so much information in that photograph. Individual and group dynamics are rendered beautifully and poignantly. There’s something about viewing photos of loved ones that is both joyful and sad—an anachronistic yearning to go backwards, the opposite of hope… regret?

It’s also a way to travel through time and space, reliving the moment, even if we are never there. And that’s what I do; I enter the scene from above, with an omniscient point of view, a hypothetical fly on the wall that would never be permitted into my cousin Betty’s pristine townhouse.

This is what I see: Betty is animated by a lively conversation with her mother Gladys. It is clear how much they love each other by their postures and expressions. Unlike most of the others, they are not looking up at the camera but are instead deeply absorbed in their discussion. Gladys is smiling, her black eyes sparkling. Funny how Betty’s eyes are so blue like her father, who she does not adore.

This is several years before Gladys develops severe dementia and recognizes no one, and several more before Betty dies from pancreatic cancer after briefly rallying in an unheard-of recovery.

My mom looks up at Loy with a brave smile. She wears a beautifully curated outfit with matching jewelry and looks as angelic as she is. On her plate is a single baked potato with no toppings. She is unable to eat any salt due to a debilitating mysterious condition called Menieres that leaves her too sick and dizzy to get out of bed for days. She develops it shortly after her second trip to see me and my friends in California after dad dies. She nurses him until the final stages of ALS and never recovers from the grief of losing her husband of 59 years. She lives alone until she spontaneously breaks her hip from an ill-advised osteoporosis medication and is forced to sell the home my father built to move to assisted living with her two sisters.

Mom spends her entire life caring for others. People approach her for advice and sympathy which she patiently provides. She and my dad give me the world. Dad and I have a special closeness due to how much we are alike. I am there with dad when he dies. Mom dies in Hospice a day after I briefly fly home to say what I expect will be goodbye to my sick cat. I never forgive myself for leaving her side.

Auntie smiles happily up at Loy and the camera. She is delighted to be in the midst of her family, with her two living sisters and especially sitting beside her best friend, her sister, my mom Lyndle. Auntie has no children; she bucks convention, chooses instead the working life. Her husband Uncle Stanley teaches me about caring for farm tools until he dies of a heart attack when I am just a child. Auntie drives young me around Waynesboro to visit her brother and I’ll always remember being sort of scared because she drives so fast.

She loves telling me how she waits with dad outside the delivery room and how happy they are when they first see me. She understands me better than anyone. She keeps driving until her car gives out when she is 100 and walks to the mall until months before she dies at 102 and a half years of age.

Nettie is gazing affectionately up at Loy. Theirs is a rarely suited match and I’m happy they found each other, albeit rather later in their prolific eventful lives. Nettie is a classics scholar and meets Loy while he teaches at Morehouse College. I’m proud of Loy’s accomplishments; he’s a true scholar and world traveler and the only member of our family to receive a doctorate. With great devotion, Loy nurses Nettie until her death a few years later.

Fred, Betty’s boyfriend at the time looks frankly at the camera. Perhaps he is aware he is the outsider in the group, tentatively attached at best, sad in that knowledge, yet resigned to his inevitable exit. Betty goes on to find true love and disappointment with Richard who cares for her as she writes about her final days. He arranges a final phone conversation where, like an idiot, I ask her to give me a sign from beyond. Because neither of us has siblings, I also tell her perhaps in our next lives, we will come back as sisters. She tries to drive a thousand miles to see me when she is sick but has to turn around. She wants to have a beach party. I finally scatter some of her ashes on a beautiful beach near my home in Santa Cruz. I don’t know what happens to Fred.

My Aunt Laura, who sits next to her photographer son, Loy, looks silently down, disengaged from everyone. She has been going in and out of fugue states for years and is getting more withdrawn. I’ll never forget coming in the assisted living lobby on Christmas Eve with residents gathered around the blind piano player Joe Giovanelli and even before mom and Auntie see me, Laura sees me and her eyes light up like the sun. We hug in a way we never have before or since. She lives until 100 and we throw her (and Auntie) elaborate parties. Auntie is present for hers and is a gracious hostess. Laura has left the building before her celebration.

Loy is not in the photo he takes. He and Nettie are visiting Virginia from Georgia. He is a devoted son but might not feel a close emotional bond with his mom. During the Depression, Laura leaves her poor sisters and marries young, caring for two kids and my sick uncle Cliff. She might not have the temperament to express love towards her children other than by keeping a spotless house and cooking gourmet meals while she finds time to sing with her church choir.

Cliff is an inventor and mason. He loves working with his hands and dies shortly after my dad. Loy and I are still alive, but no one in the photo is still alive. I let Loy down by failing to write his biography but we are close to this day.

The most obvious part of the photo doesn’t occur to me until today. It is a photo of Mother’s Day. Every mother who has family has their family there with them… except my mom. I am not sitting beside my mom as she buoyantly beams at Loy. I am not there for my Mom. Once again, I am the palpable void in her life. I see something clearly. I see myself missing. I see my own regret.

 

 

 

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