Sunday, March 5, 2017

An Elephant Tale

Serendipity plays a large role in my life. And on a warm August day several years ago, it entered, stage left, again.

As I stood pumping gas I noticed a large Circus sign
in the window of the station.  The Circus was coming to town, children's tickets were half-price (or free or ridiculously cheap) and I thought, wow!, wouldn't it be great to have the whole family go to the circus and have this experience together? We hadn't done anything like that with the grown children and our grandchildren.

I kept thinking about that circus as I continued to run errands. I thought about it all through grocery shopping and loading the grocery bags into my car. Once home, I put away the perishables and called my husband and asked him about buying tickets for all of us and treating the whole family to a day at the circus. He was all for it, so I went back to town and bought the tickets.

It worked out that almost all of us were able to attend. One grandchild was at his other grandma's for the weekend, but the other three were there. They were so cute, in such a hurry to get from the parking lot to the events. They rode on the ponies, saw the big snakes exhibit, and did some other things while we waited for it to be time to enter the big top. As we made our way across the acreage toward the big Top, there was a ride on the right, where you could ride the elephant...it was extra money for those tickets, but since it was to help with the expenses of keeping the elephants, we shelled out the money with only a small amount of trepidation.

 I watched as the parents took the grands up the steps to get onto the elephant's backs and the elephant who was being boarded by my grandchildren, had her face right near me, behind the fence, but near me. As I looked into that huge eye, I thought, "Wow, if she rolled over or ran amok, she could kill my grandkids in a flash. Maybe this isn't such a good idea." then, the most incredible thing happened...

...She put her trunk through the fence, wrapped it around my left thigh and pulled me closer. When I was a few steps closer to her, she released my leg and began petting my arm and shoulder. She ran her trunk down my back. She held my hand and arm and said into my head, "Your darlings are safer with me than they are with you. I will not allow any harm to come to them. They are not in harms way. I will protect them. She gave me one last caress and pulled her trunk back through the fence. I asked her if she were happy; if they treated her well, and she replied,  "well, I am not free, but then, I am not hunted or hungry either. They are as good to me as they know how to be".

The young woman who took the tickets and guided the riders up the steps looked at me and said, in an awed voice, "Wow! She really likes you! She has never done that before." I said,  "Really?" and she said, "Yes, really. None of them have ever responded to a stranger that way before. I don't understand it. Maybe it's the way you smell?"

Well, I was wearing lavender essential oil, but that didn't account for the conversation that took place in my head. and the elephant voice wasn't one of mine, it wasn't a voice I've ever heard before. It was the elephant's voice. It felt electric, yet soft.

For several years, I would hear her in the night or while I was doing something meditative like dish washing, vacuuming, ironing or folding laundry. She would always tell me she was okay and ask how I was and how the babies were.

I haven't heard that deep and calming voice for a couple of years. She doesn't speak to me anymore. it makes a spot in my heart ache just a  little. I'm hoping I'm just too many miles away to hear her.

2 comments:

  1. That made me cry. No more to be said. You said it all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm sorry. It was such a magnificent gift. I miss her and pray for her every single day.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to comment, but keep it clean please.