An icon prepares the world

Jane Goodall died in Los Angeles a year ago today. Before her death, she spent years preparing others to build the future she envisioned and inspiring youth to follow her work.

Death as the next adventure

At a lecture, a young girl asked Goodall about her next big project. Goodall replied: "My next big project? Death!" She explained she was over eighty, travelled over three hundred days a year, and was curious about what came next.

“My next big project? Death!”

Shaping a legacy forward

When the author heard Goodall recount this exchange over dinner in Manhattan, she sensed something deeper. Goodall was beginning to prepare the world for her absence, shaping her legacy and focusing forward.

A mother's role in the beginning

In nineteen fifty-seven, the author's mother Helen Illick was appointed Assistant Director for Systematic Biology at the National Science Foundation at only thirty-one years old. She championed a grant application to support a young woman researching chimpanzees in Africa: Jane Goodall.

Witnessing chimpanzee conflict

After witnessing Rwanda's nineteen ninety-four genocide, the author asked Goodall how she coped when chimpanzees killed each other. Goodall said she was horrified but later saw them forgive, rebuild, and live better than humans at forgiveness.

“I was horrified, Henry, absolutely horrified. But, after the fighting ended, I saw them forgive.”

Youth without Cold War memory

As the Cold War receded, young people with no direct memory of it sometimes told Goodall privately: "I don't see your reason for hope. I don't understand it. And I don't share it." Their concerns increasingly shaped her vision and work.

“I don't see your reason for hope. I don't understand it. And I don't share it.”

Roots and Shoots takes flight

In nineteen ninety-one, at Gombe research station in Tanzania, Goodall met with twelve teenagers. Their conversation led to founding Roots and Shoots, her youth program, which now has active groups in seventy-five countries.

A dove rises with their hopes

When Goodall became a United Nations Messenger of Peace, Roots and Shoots members built and flew a giant papier-mâché dove to celebrate. Watching the youth's faces as the dove rose, Goodall's face became luminous with profound, radiant happiness.

The cloud contingent

When the author and Goodall both lost their mothers months apart, Goodall said they were on a cloud together watching over them. As others close to them died, they wished them to that cloud. It became their shared secret and ultimate destination.

“They're on a cloud together somewhere, Henry; they're floating along happily on a cloud, watching over us.”

Running with joy at ninety

Two years before she died, Goodall spoke at Kings Theater in Brooklyn. At nearly ninety years old, she suddenly ran a full lap around the empty stage with the glee of a girl, her shawl billowing behind her as the audience rose cheering.

A final dinner and a promise kept

Just ten days before her death, Goodall shared curries and scotch with the author in Manhattan, speaking of people they cared about and plans they were still making. They toasted the cloud contingent one last time.

The work continues in Pasadena

On October first, schoolchildren in Pasadena, California gathered to hear Goodall speak about planting five thousand trees. When her passing was announced moments before she was to speak, the students instinctively knew what to do: they kept their promise and planted their tree.