I’m about to talk about Samhain again. I swear I’m not trying to turn this into a pagan blog, it’s just what’s on my mind these days. Samhain is almost here, the time for honoring our ancestors and beloved dead. Since this year it falls on Sunday, I figure the trick-or-treaters will all come on Saturday and I can devote the actual day to the more serious side of the holiday. The serious side–the shortening days, death, the longing for people lost to me–is really calling to me this year. As usual, I miss my dad the most. I didn’t get to know him nearly well enough before he died. But this Samhain weekend I’ve decided to share a little something I did appreciate before it was too late. You see, I sort of helped my dad write a book. Not a famous professional book, just a self-made collection of essays, but I helped him gather and type them. When he had them professionally bound he gave me a copy, of course. It’s one of my treasured possessions.

Way back in the 1990s, right after I graduated high school, my parents and younger sisters moved to India. My dad was stationed at the U.S. embassy in New Delhi; they ended up living there for maybe ten years and I got to spend a couple summers there with them. My father loved nature of all kinds, including humble houseplants and neighborhood birds, and when he moved to India he decided to learn about all the new plants and animals he was seeing around the city. He started writing about them for the embassy newsletter, and for a few years his ‘Nature Lover’ articles were a regular feature. As far as I know, these were the only thing my dad ever wrote for fun. I think they’re quite good, but of course I might not be an objective critic; maybe I just love them because I can hear my dad’s voice in them. I love you, dad. I still miss you.

His first couple years’ worth of essays are dated, and in 1997 he actually wrote a short piece for October 31. Seems like the perfect one to share for Samhain:

Tirucalli

No, the leaves haven’t dropped, there aren’t any, usually not, at any rate. Just the green branches, ramifying almost infinitely it seems. You can see them here and there, one in a pot near the HS stairs, a larger one by the top of the ES stairs, just standing there, waiting for a casting call for Addams Family III, dark green like the dresses the ladies wear in the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. If you venture to break off a twig, you will get a few drops of thick white liquid, like milk–which is why it is called the milk bush. Of course it is a euphorbia (or should that be ‘an?’); anything that weird-looking could hardly be anything else. It is the Euphorbia tirucalli, and as you can guess from the name, it is native to South India. All parts of the plant are very poisonous and not for internal consumption. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. The reason it isn’t serious about leaves is that the limbs are suspected chlorophyll-bearing bodies themselves, and handle photosynthesis very nicely without any help, thank you. There actually are leaves, but they are small, pointed, and soon drop off. The limbs really are kind of interesting in themselves: cylindrical, with very little taper, jointed here and there and starting off in a new direction–reminds me of a stick-figure tree I once drew in third grade (all right, I admit it, my Lovely and Talented Assistant is the family artist).