In a moving ceremony last week, UC Davis dedicated permanent and living memorials to five scientists who died on a university research trip to the Sea of Cortez last year.
Family, colleagues and friends of UC Davis ecology professor Gary Polis and postgraduate researcher Michael Rose gathered at the event outside Putah Creek Lodge. There, in a landscaped row, a limestone memorial has been placed and five trees have been planted honoring the lives of Polis, Rose and the three Kyoto University researchers who also perished in the March 2000 boating accident off Baja California: Takuya Abe, Masahiko Higashi and Shigeru Nakano.
The trees chosen are symbolic, speakers told the crowd. For the UC Davis researchers, two flowering chitalpa trees, native to Baja California, were planted. In remembrance of the Kyoto University scientists, the university chose Japanese magnolias.
"Trees are living memorials," said Dean Neal Van Alfen of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. "They grow and change, and we can think of what might have been if (the researchers) were still with us," he said.
Provost Virginia Hinshaw spoke of the scientists’ courage and dogged determination in pursuing their research goals. The researchers, along with several UC Davis students and volunteers from the conservation non-profit, the Earthwatch Institute, traveled to the Sea of Cortez to study the ecology of scorpions and spiders inhabiting the sea islands.
"They taught us that there are true risks inherent in research," Hinshaw said. "We thank them for their courage in pursuing new knowledge."
The words, in Japanese and English, on a limestone memorial also unveiled at the ceremony captured the researchers’ enthusiasm for science and life, now cut short.
In the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck wrote: "Life and living: Lord, how the day passes! It is like a life, so quickly when we don’t watch it, and so slowly if we do."
Environmental science and policy professor Paul Sabatier donned a Hawaiian shirt, as did several in the memorial service crowd, in tribute to Polis’ frequent apparel choice – one that embodied his vivacious spirit.
"Every time I put one on, I remember Gary and his smile," Sabatier said.
He didn’t know Rose as well, but in hearing of his courage on the boat trip – staying with the vessel and trying to save his mates – Sabatier said he gained a sense of his spirit.
"We know on that day he was a hero," Sabatier said. "He was a little guy, but he died saving his friends and colleagues."
Sharon Polis, Polis’ wife, and Susan Roberts, Rose’s wife, both attended the ceremony and offered remembrances and thanks.
The president of Kyoto University, Nakao Magato, sent his regret for not being able to attend, as did the widows of the Japanese researchers. They hope to eventually visit the memorial.
"The growth of trees will give us a strength and energy to lives as a memory of my husband’s life forever," wrote Tomoko Higashi in a letter to UC Davis.