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Remembering John Spencer '13 Eulogy by Robert Humston, associate professor of biology
I think it's fitting to begin with a section from Aldo Leopold's Odyssey. In this short piece, Leopold describes the natural cycles and interconnectedness of all life by tracing the endless path of a single atom, "X," as the cycles of life and death usher him on a journey through the landscape:
"X had marked time in the limestone ledge since the Paleozoic seas covered the land. Time, to an atom locked in a rock, does not pass.
The break came when a bur-oak root nosed down a crack and began prying and sucking. In the flush of a century the rock decayed, and X was pulled out and up into the world of living things. He helped build a flower, which became an acorn, which fattened a deer, which fed an Indian, all in a single year. From his berth in the Indian's bones, X joined again in chase and flight, feast and famine, hope and fear... When the Indian took his leave of the prairie, X moldered briefly underground, only to embark on a second trip through the bloodstream of the land.
This time it was a rootlet of bluestem that sucked him up and lodged him in a leaf that rode the green billows of the prairie June, sharing the common task of hoarding sunlight. To this leaf also fell an uncommon task: flicking shadows across a plover's eggs. The ecstatic plover, hovering overhead, poured praises on something perfect: perhaps the eggs, perhaps the shadows, or perhaps the haze of pink phlox that lay on the prairie.
When the departing plovers set wings for the Argentine, all the bluestems waved farewell with tall new tassels. When the first geese came out of the north and all the bluestems glowed wine red, a deermouse cut the leaf in which X lay, and buried it in an underground nest, as if to hide a bit of Indian summer from the coming frosts. But a fox detained the mouse, molds and fungi took the nest apart, and X lay in the soil again, foot-loose and fancy-free."
Leopold goes on to describe how time and gravity eventually lead X to a river and eventually the ocean, a path he says all of life's material ultimately follows. I think this is especially fitting today as we remember John. It reminds us that the natural cycle of life and death, joy and tragedy, binds all living things together. John's path in life also led him to rivers and wetlands, where he found so much joy wandering knee-deep and soaked in the beauty around him.
It was my honor to be part of that journey for John. When he arrived in my classroom in his first semester of college, he caught my attention by speaking openly in class about his deep connections with the outdoors and his favorite southern landscapes. Intellect came as easily to John as his quick jokes and generous smiles. John was the kind of person who drew you in from the moment you started paying attention. The next year we spent three weeks together with four other students crammed into a minivan, driving, hiking, and floating Appalachian rivers from their meadow sources in the mountains to their muddy deltas in Chesapeake Bay and eventually the Atlantic. John and I discovered we shared common tastes in music, in the outdoors, and in the throwback Air Jordans he sported on the trip. Looking back I realize this was the beginning of our friendship. However, I found out afterwards that this experience was formative for John in many ways. He saw people inventing new ways to restore natural functions to rivers degraded by human activities, and saw people spending their work days immersed in the natural world physically and intellectually. In those examples he saw a life for himself as well, and soon after chose to pursue that life. There are few things as satisfying to a professor as to watch a student make that transition from seeking and exploration to pursuit driven by purpose and passion. He realized the rewards of his hard work when he was able to continue studying river restoration in the graduate program at the storied Odum School of Ecology. It was my honor to have played a small role in guiding John through that part of his life, and I will always be grateful for that.
Leopold's Odyssey tells us that nothing ever truly leaves our earth, and once a person like John enters our lives we are changed and we carry that change with us forever. At the most basic level this is the legacy left behind by the people that we lose. I want to humbly suggest that John has left a greater legacy in our lives. To explain I turn once again to the words of Leopold, who said:
"One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise."
When he first arrived in my class, John recognized the wounds but always saw the beauty beneath no matter how deep he learned that those wounds cut. When soon after he learned about the ways we can work to conserve, protect, and restore our natural systems, John chose to be the doctor. It is too easy to become overwhelmed the more we explore the damage history has inflicted on our landscapes. But John's easy smile and unflappable humor would have none of that. For all its tragedy, John always saw the beauty and the potential first, and sought to spend his life showing others that it is still possible for us to repair our relationship with the earth. It's a rare person who can smile and set his jaw at the same time.
Let us take his example as his legacy. Life will go on for us and there is work to be done. John is no longer here to undertake the job; let's strive to do it for him, by working from his example and thus keeping him in our memories and always in our lives. For once again as Leopold reminds us:
"Roots still nose among the rocks. Rains still pelt the fields. Deermice still hide their souvenirs of Indian summer."