Epilogue
Jake and I are sitting at our comfortable breakfast nook, the morning sun is angling through the window, and the kids are still sleeping.
Jake is reviewing some students’ tests on his laptop.
Chewing my lip, I’m working on my morning crossword puzzle, when Jake’s phone beeps.
He idly looks at the message, then, with more intensity, picks up his phone and starts scrolling. I watch curiously.
He finally sets his phone down and states flatly, “Well, it’s official. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it plans to list the ivory-billed woodpecker as extinct.”
It’s been seven years since our field study in Arkansas, but Jake’s passion for the ivory-bill has continued to burn as brightly as it did all that time ago. When I look at him now, his eyes carry a pain that makes me reach over and clutch his arm.
I stand and slide onto his lap, holding him tight. “What does that mean, exactly?”
“Well, in a few more years, if nothing turns up, they’ll consider it truly gone.
A casualty of human stupidity and greed that makes me want to scream and break heads.
All those so-called birders that shot, killed and stuffed thousands of these creatures and those logging companies that didn’t give a rat’s ass that they were clear-cutting old growth forest that will never stand again.
” He wipes his eyes. “It just kills me.”
I hold him tighter and murmur, “Have faith. Maybe a hundred years from now, we’ll clone ivory-bills from all the dead specimens that those idiots collected.
Or maybe they are still living and thriving in the deep mountains of Ojito de Agua in Cuba.
Just because it’s too late here doesn’t mean it’s too late everywhere. ”
“I know.” He pauses and leans back to gaze into my eyes.
“I’m truly grateful to the ivory bill no matter what.
I have the search to thank for bringing us together.
We just need to keep trying and maybe one day the gods will have mercy as they did with Ceyx and Halcyon and the forest’s dreams will come true and make the world a perfect place, not just for a nesting pair of kingfishers but for a pair of ivory-bills to live in.
That’s what your story tells us, right?”
I nod and touch my lips softly to his. Remembering my life from long ago, I think, Dreams are what keeps you going day after day, even when the world is bleak and dull. Dreams live within all of us including the forests and we must hold and cherish them.
I say, “I believe the ivory-bill is biding its time. They’ll only reveal themselves when things are right with the world, when they know it’s safe and people won’t shoot and stuff them.
” Laying my hand on Jake’s shoulder, I feel him relax under my touch.
I continue, “Until we prove that to them, they’ll remain hidden, elusive, waiting for us to get our shit together.
But they are out there, patiently waiting and watching until we learn to share the world with them.
I’m hoping it happens within our lifetime, but if not, maybe our children’s. ”
Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Dr. James T. Tanner, Public Domain