The Mourning Parade by Dawn Reno Langley

Author:Dawn Reno Langley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Elephant, veterinarian, Asiatic elephant, Conservation, Thailand, Human-animal relationships, Mothers and sons, Children--Death, Bereavement, Love stories, Literary
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: 2017-07-18T04:00:00+00:00

Twenty-Three

It is a fine seasoning for joy

to think of those we love.

-Moliere

Natalie tried her best to ignore Christmas. Four months, she’d been here. A year and a half since the boys died. Her second Christmas alone.

She spent the whole day with Sophie, working on commands, moving her in and out of protected contact, practicing lifting her feet, making sure Sophie felt comfortable with Natalie’s hands in her mouth, taking multiple trips to the mud baths and the river. Anything to stay busy. Anything to push away the clouds of doubt and the streams of memories. Anything to quell the homesickness.

Cicadas buzzed as the sanctuary’s dogs chased each other in a game of rough-and-tumble tag on the platform. Most of the volunteers had returned home for the Christmas holidays, leaving for the month of December to return in January, if they were to return at all. A skeleton crew remained so that the administrative duties would be accomplished. All of the Thai staff were still in place since the majority of them were born in the area and Buddhist. Of the non-Thai staff, only Karina, Hatcher, and Natalie stayed to celebrate the Christian holiday. Andrew, still in Africa, probably wouldn’t return until February. Andrew’s absence provided a stay of execution for Sophie and gave Natalie more time to work with her.

But it still wasn’t enough.

Whenever there was a thirty- or ten- or even a two-second lapse in activity, memories cropped up in Natalie’s mind: Danny’s first Christmas when he stared at the lights, fascinated by their brilliance. That simple act thrilled all the adults around him. He had been the center of attention since birth, a happy baby who giggled constantly. Even two-year-old Stephen got a kick out of the baby’s wide-eyed staring at anything that twinkled or sparkled.

By his third birthday, Stephen understood Christmas and Santa Claus, and he begged her to take him to see the “toeman” (his way of saying “snowman”) in the yard around the corner, and he never understood when she tried to explain that the eight-foot-tall blowup snowman lit up only when it was dark outside. Each night when she picked him up from daycare, they came home via another route so they could see different decorations, but he wanted—and expected—to see that “toeman,” so she finally gave up on everything else. And he smiled and laughed every time they did see that “toeman.” He told Santa Claus that Christmas that he wanted the “biggest blue bike,” and when Natalie asked him why, Stephen answered in his best three-year-old serious voice, “Because blue bikes are the fastest, Momma.”

“He would’ve loved you, Sophie. Both of them would have,” she whispered into the elephant’s ear as they walked back from the river.

In the distance, she heard laughter coming from the administration building and realized with a start that it was dinnertime. She imagined Hatcher and Karina at the table with a bottle of wine and the Christmas chicken they’d talked Hom, Mali’s friend and one of the cooks, into butchering for their holiday dinner.

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