3. Day three.

I remember a silly conversation we’d had once about animals. You’d had this developed explanation for why whales were your favorite animal, and while I’ve forgotten the details by now, I remember smiling sweetly, impressed that you’d given something like that so much thought. You’d asked me what mine was, and I had no idea. No one had ever really asked me that before. I never like to give an answer to something unless I know for sure what I want to say (which is why I always had poor participation grades as a student), but you seemed slightly surprised that I didn’t have an answer and I felt pressed to have one. We’d finished watching the Blackfish documentary that night and so I might have said dolphins because they’re known for being friendly and for being protectors to both animals and people. I suddenly felt boring, and wondered if you were judging my answer.

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Photo credit: Anupam Nath / AP

The other day I read that elephants have their own grieving process. Elephants can remember and mourn loved ones, even years after their death. They exercise great care: while standing over their remains, elephants touch the bones of the dead, they smell them, turn them over, caress the bones with their trunks. Elephants will also break off tree branches, gather grass clumps and drop them on the loved one’s carcass. Families of elephants will surround the dying, stand around them and to get them up with their tusks and put food in their mouths and touch them with their feet. And this happens across families too, nearby herds gathering together in support of the dying and the loved ones who are being left behind. Who knew? All I was told about elephants as a kid was that they have a tendency to never forget...

I think I found my new favorite animal.