Merry May Day, friends!
May holds one of our loveliest celebrations here at the sanctuary, Mother’s Day, which falls on May 10th this year. For those of you who are newer to the blog, it’s also the day we celebrate the honorary birthday of Jody, our beloved friend who passed away three years ago. Jody was one of the original seven chimpanzees who first arrived at the sanctuary in 2008. Not knowing her exact date of birth, we chose to celebrate her on Mother’s Day in honor of the nine babies she had while in biomedical research and was never allowed to raise. We often referred to Jody as the “den mother” of her group for her special way of always looking out for her group mates, making sure everyone was safe and accounted for. Mothering was in her heart.
Jody and Foxie were particularly close:
Jody and our memories of her will forever be inextricably linked to Mother’s Day and, I think, the fresh lilacs we’ve traditionally brought the chimpanzees for their celebration. I will never look at or smell lilacs without thinking of Jody and her family.
May is also hands down one of the most beautiful at the sanctuary. Life expands a little more each day with the warming temperatures and the lengthening light. The chimpanzees enjoy more time leisurely exploring their outdoor habitats and as the greenhouse panels come down, long hours relaxing in the breezes and sun. The grass turns a wild neon green and grows taller than the chimps, causing the humans to stand, staring endlessly across their habitats trying to locate them. The hills are covered in the bright yellow of balsamroot and purple of mountain lupine. The bovine ladies return to their mountain cow days in their summer pastures. The air is full of birdsong and marmots yelling and the skies run the gamut from bluebird blue to charcoal gray.
Negra:
Rayne:
Missy and Jody:
Honey:
Yes, May holds bittersweet and heartbreaking memories as well, but equally, if not more so, it holds the sheer privilege to honor each of the chimpanzee mothers here and the connections that will always exist between them and the children they gave birth to in the labs. Annie, Foxie, Jody, Missy, and Negra all had multiple children. While many of their children did not make it out of the labs, several gratefully did, making it to sanctuaries of their own where many of them continue to thrive today.
Mother’s Day is also a way for us to honor the fact that just like all chimpanzees in labs and most captive situations, each of the sixteen chimpanzees who call the sanctuary home are the now adult children of families they should have been with. I will always celebrate these connections, even more so because of all the decades they were never honored.
And we are incredibly lucky to be able to celebrate our bovine mamas, Honey and Betsy, who were it not for you and others like you, would never have had the extraordinarily rare opportunity to spend their lives living in sanctuary with their children.
Here, not long after they first arrived, Meredith (front), her mother, Honey, Betsy (left rear) and her son, Nutmeg (right) who passed away two years ago:
(L-R) Meredith, Honey, Betsy, and Nutmeg (we sure miss this guy) in their summer pasture:
Something I truly appreciate about working here is our commitment to transparency and sharing all that we reasonably can about the chimpanzees’ and cows’ lives to connect you all, our amazing supporters, with them and what you’ve helped create in their lives. Nothing that happens here would be possible without you. We always hope to portray how invaluable true sanctuaries are and what they can provide for the extraordinary individuals who call them home. And we always hope to portray the reality of our precious residents’ lives in all it’s forms, along with the reality of what it takes to provide them with the dignity and individualized care they deserve, not only on a monetary or physical level, but also a truly human one. I’ve always said being a caregiver isn’t just a job (well, it shouldn’t be), it’s a way of life. But I’ve come to see more and more that it’s a way of heart.
I won’t lie. This post, and in truth, most of our posts right now are not always easy for any of us to write. While we thrill in sharing (and live for!) so many of the cherished and joyous moments we get the honor of witnessing, in the same, sometimes unspoken, breath they carry the weight of our constant thoughts and current worries of Negra and her daily well-being, along with the challenges and changes she, her group, and we all, are facing. How we can ease these, what we and they have faced in the past, and what we will all face again.
More than anyone else in my life, the chimpanzees show me over and over how to hold all parts of life. With her permission, I’d like to share with you part of what our amazing Dr. Erin so graciously shared with us recently: “I remind myself that struggling does not always equal suffering, that bodily discomfort is part of old age, that death is a part of life…There is a sacredness to this time, and to the care and honor we give Negra and each other.”
Please join us in celebrating Jody, Negra, and all our beautiful resident chimpanzee and cow mamas and their families this month.
Annie:
Betsy (r) and her son, Nutmeg (l):
Foxie:
Honey (r) and her daughter, Meredith (l):
Jody:
Missy (mama to Honey B!):
and Negra:
And the one extended family birthday we’re celebrating this month belongs to Jody’s gorgeous son, Clay! Clay is turning 39 this year and is thriving in his sanctuary home at Save the Chimps. Clay is also half-brother to Burrito, who shares the same father, Mack. (Photo courtesy of STC):
I will end with a Negra story:
I went looking for Negra yesterday afternoon and after repeatedly checking her usual current spots, I began to grow worried when I couldn’t find her. In one more check I headed for the side of her greenhouse that provides a better view of the top platform where you can usually find her. As I turned the corner I could immediately see she wasn’t there. While we wait for temperatures to be warm enough to remove all the greenhouse panels, J.B. recently removed a single panel on one side of Negra’s favorite summertime corner, providing a view to Young’s Hill while not letting the wild and still cold winds through. And to my great relief and surprise, there she was! It takes more effort on her part now to continue doing what’s important to her, but as Shirley Jackson wrote as a symbol of the importance of never giving up one’s individuality, Negra continues to “insist upon her cup of stars”. She is a wonder.
I didn’t take a photo yesterday, but just as in this photo, this is the favored spot and favored pose, complete with doll in the hip pocket! (notice the tiny feet sticking up from her hip 🙂 ):
Thank you all for being here, for walking, celebrating, remembering, and honoring all the ups and downs and in betweens with us all. And for helping us ensure to the best of our ability that each of our beloved friends gets their “cup of stars.”
