I meant no harm. I never meant to frighten that odd girl Lily, not when she was little and not tonight, when the bee scared me.
When Lily was tiny, I was protecting her! I also saved the girl’s mother one time. I saved Trullia’s life. I kept her from hurting herself that one night when her illness was very bad. I grabbed the knife in my trunk, carefully, so carefully, and I took it away from Trullia.
And so I knew that I could save the girl Lily, too.
I still remember that day in West Virginia, when Lily was very young. Trullia was smoking. Blowing. In. Out. In. Out.
I saw the child. She wobbled, riding the bike. I saw her fall. And I heard her screams.
I tried to comfort her, lying by her side. I tried to calm the crying child. I did not want her to be afraid, to be alone, to be hurt.
Oh, I know about hurt. I know about blood. I know of fear and I know about tears. I know loneliness and I know pain, and I certainly know how it is to be afraid.
My first owner, in a faraway country, before here, before Bill, kept me in chains. He beat me. He made me bleed. I had red raw scrapes on my knees, on my legs. I ached from the switch, my skin worn thin. That man, that first owner, shot my parents when I was little. I always wished somebody would come and save me.
I learned in that other country how to be fearful of people. I learned to feel hate.
Then I came to the United States, on a ship. My spirit and my skin broken, sick.
I was sold to angry men who reeked of greed, circus workers. I lived for more than two years with eight other elephants, all of us treated the same. We were a family, though. When I became heavy and tired with pregnancy, I realized I was going to have a child. I felt the baby move within, shifting, kicking. Feeling that life kept me alive. Twenty-two months I carried my child inside.
But then the men took the baby away, soon after it came into the world. Those men made me feel hate once again, stronger than ever. They took my baby, my Little Gray.
She looked back at me, that day she was taken. I was chained. I pulled and pulled! I could not break the chains. I could not save my baby.
To this day, I think of her with great pain. I wish they had allowed her to stay. I pray. I know how to go down on my knees. I raise my eyes to the sky and I cry out on the inside.
Please. Please. I want to see my Little Gray.
I will never stop looking for Little Gray. I search the elephants at each circus that works with ours, hoping to see her face, hoping for eyes like mine.