Jellie Bellie

We almost lost Hovis. Miraculously, after being diagnosed with kidney failure and hovering between this land and the land beyond, he pulled through. And now, he is again scrounging and begging for junk food and pottering around the garden.

But our respite has been brief. Hakim, the orphaned baby elephant that we nursed almost a year back, is about to be put down after breaking both hind legs in a fall whilst being transported.

I don't know which one is worse, really. The excruciating feeling in the stomach that makes you feel sick is most definitely there.

Hakim, if he were to live a normal healthy life, would live to 60 or even 70, and that means he would have most certainly outlive us, and we used to joke that when we are old and rickety, this enormous bull elephant would still suck our thumb like he did when he was only 5 months old. He would have been one of two animals we personally know that would bid us goodbye when we took the big journey.

We fed him, bathed him, cleaned up after him, let him suck our thumb to fall asleep. We would take him out on walks where he would play with the fronds and put everything in his mouth, especially sand. We swam and pushed each other in the lake. And we would fret and worry and sleep next to him when he got sick. We would chase him around the pen with a half full bottle of milk when he naughtily wanted to play and not eat.

This is one elephant that we would love, always. Regardless, even if he grew up to be an angry bull elephant. This must be what parents go through when they lose their sons and daughters.