It's been a rough week. There has been a lot emotional bumps for me. The first one is hearing that Kevin's Grandmother passed away. I only met her once, and I know Kevin is not close to her, but she was still a part of the family, and it brings back other losses of grandparents and makes those feelings fresh again.
Then the next day I heard that Mimi, an elephant at the Denver Zoo, has been put in hospice care. She is at least 53 years old and her health is starting to decline more rapidly. Her care takers believe it is just a matter of time now. I hate to have favorites amongst a species I adore so much. But Mimi is my girl. I just love her to pieces and hearing this tore me to shreds. I cried for half a day. I guess it's good to have time to prepare but this is not easy.
Today I found out that Snow, Klondike's sister and one of Denver's Polar Bear miracles from 1994 passed away unexpectedly in her sleep last night at 17 years old. I was 11 years old when these two little guys were born. They were abandoned by their mother and hand raised at the Denver Zoo. I remember being in complete awe of the whole situation. I remember visiting them at the zoo nursery and seeing them laying there sucking on huge blocks of ice before they could even walk. I watched and listened to every story I could about them while they were growing up, following their every move. I cried when at a year old they were sent to their new home in Florida. I didn't think it was fair that after all the time spent loving and caring for them that they would just ship them off somewhere else. My 12 year old brain couldn't fathom it and didn't think it was fair at all. I went to visit them in Florida 8 years ago on my honeymoon. They've been a part of a HUGE chunk of my life. And now she is gone.
So yeah, it's been a rough week. Made even rougher by the fact that everybody close to me does not really understand all of this loss and emotion. I am a very emotional person with a huge reliance on connections to people and things in my life so all of this has a more profound impact on me that it might have on other people. It feels pretty huge to me. It really sucks that I can't really share it with someone else close to me. I know I will be ok, I just get frustrated about that sometimes. It makes me feel isolated.
On a positive note, On August 28th a new little girl was welcomed to the Elephant herd at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park. She shares a birthday with my little man and she is a cutie. I celebrate and am so glad that they have had so much breeding success with these amazing animals. I hope some day I can be a part of something like that.
TTFN
