Tusks and Tears
Driving through the entrance to Amboseli National Park, in southern Kenya, the vehicle was filled with suspense as we kept our eyes fixated on the green swampy landscape. And then, elephants. Wild elephants everywhere. The vehicle fell silent as we watched in awe the enormous gray figures swaying, ears flapping, tails swishing, tusks shining. Tears welling in our eyes in the euphoria of the moment.
Every single one of us had seen elephants in captivity at some of the best zoological parks in the world. But nothing, absolutely nothing could compare to seeing so many magnificent elephants living in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. Stoic creatures. Beautiful. Their flashy white tusks gave off an ethereal glow against the backdrop of bright green and blue sky. Tusks gleaming in the daylight, a source of their beauty and of their demise.
Counting Sheep; Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
When I think about trying to remain emotionally unattached to an animal, whether a domestic foster pet, an individual in a wildlife study or a domestic farm animal, I always think about my friend Vicki and her valiant effort to remain emotionally unattached to four sheep named Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Moe.
When I was a teenager my neighbor friend Vicki decided that she would raise sheep for a county fair project. She volunteered at a local veterinarian’s office every summer, and it was her life’s dream to become a veterinarian one day. Doc Smith told her he didn’t think it was a good idea, but since she had her mind made up, to remember that whatever she did, not to name the sheep. He didn’t want her to become attached to them when it came time for the livestock sale during the county fair.
Vicki took Doc’s advice and told me that she was just going to call them Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Moe. She thought this was better than the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4, because it wasn’t a ranking per say, just a way to keep the records straight. And these certainly were not names, just a way to tell them apart. I nodded my tacit approval.
