He was a solemn and delicate little boy.His father was a physicist, and I could seeon the day that I watched him on the beachin La Jolla, that the shell in his hand was no toyto him. He had learned to look at things.Also to treat information with great seriousness.So he studied it carefully and explained to methat the successive ridges on the curvaturewere the stages of its growth, and what formof carbon calcium was, and how evolutionhad worked its way up to invertebrates.He would brush back a shock of blond hairfrom his eyes to look up and see if I followed him.The hole in his heart was not what killed him;it was the way that his lungs had to laborbecause of the defect. The surf was breakingthrough irises of light, quick small rainbowsdown the beach as far as one could see.He had to have been a very avid listener.It seemed to me to mean that he’d been loved,and wanted to be like his father, which was whyit was so delicious to him to be talkingto almost any adult about all there is to know.