Wayne Gray In Memory of Anne Mills Gray (3/29/59 - 7/22/95) To serve as a lasting tribute to Anne and her fight against cancer, a coastal redwood (Sequoia Semperviren) in Castle Rock State Park was dedicated in her memory. Sequoia Semperviren literally means “Ever Living” and was chosen to reflect how Anne’s memory will live on in the hearts of those whose lives she touched. This is particularly true for her surviving son, David, who believes that his mother lives in the top of the tree. Anne’s tree is one of the tallest in the park; rising nearly 300 feet above, and the top not visible from, the ground. David believes Anne watches over him from her vantage point in the sky and that he can hear her speak (literally) in his heart. When we visit the tree he presses his ear against my chest, listening to his mother in my heart, and looks towards the sky so that Anne can see him smile. The Sequoia Sempervirens are the largest and oldest living things on Earth. Now restricted to the foggy coastal belt of Northern California, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and an area in China, they are the only living examples of a tree line that spanned the Earth in the age of the dinosaurs. Just as a cancer victim must continuously adapt and find new survival strategies, these redwoods have developed a specialized skin of bark that shields them from fire and a wood that remains intact, impervious to the onslaught of insects and rot, even after being buried for thousands of years. If the tree should fall, it will attempt to continue growing by turning the upward-facing limbs into trees themselves (the source of many tree rows). If the tree is cut, new growth will quickly spring out from the stump. Should the tree die or be stressed, its burl will burst into life and can survive almost indefinitely. Family groups (called Cathedrals) will grow out of and encircle the living remains of the fallen redwood. To battle against the attack of cancer, the treatments inflicted by the current state of medical science, and the resulting physical and emotional scars, cancer survivors must continuously find new ways to grow. Like the redwoods, their scars will be the source of new growth and their lives will sprout new life; more precious and beautiful than what had come before.
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