It’s a long story, but this isn’t the time or place to tell it all.  The short version: My sister Jane has moved into a remote corner of upstate New York to spend the rest of her life with friends she loves and who love her.

I could never quite figure out how to be the brother I wanted to be, but I tried all of my life. I haven’t seen her for a long time and don’t expect to see her again, but there is great love and connection and shared experience between us, sadly most of it is awful.

I call her every month, and yesterday we had one of our best conversations ever Towards the end, she dropped the news that she and her friend had jointly adopted an infant elephant in Ghana named Doldol.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Jane sound as happy as she did while telling me about this elephant, who was saved from certain death by the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Africa, a respected organization that saves wildlife and brings endangered sick animals to safety.

I loved listening to her talk about her visits to her friend; they love looking over at photos of Doldol and imagining her life. It hit me, I should do this.

The only thing I could think of in our childhood that we did together was shop for Christmas trinkets for our mother and run away together, which we often did, and usually with limited success.

How nice, I thought, if we could do something positive together at this point in our lives.

So Maria and I went on the Wildrick sight and decided to adopt an older elephant named Kinyei, who was wandering in the Kinyei Conservancy. Her mother was found dead nearby, seemingly from giving birth. A pack of lions was circling nearby.

She was helicoptered, flown to Nairobi, and taken to a safe rescue conversation center. She was nurtured until she was strong and is healthy and living happily with other orphaned elephants.

This isn’t something I would normally think to do, but it seemed just right for Christmas, and it felt good to help save an African elephant and also it made Jane happy, something it’s not always been easy for me to do.

It costs $50 a year to adopt an elephant in need.  It feels good. I’ll get regular updates about Kinyei, which I will share.

In other animal news, Matt Ross, our skilled and compassionate farrier, came over in the bitter cold Saturday to take a look at Lulu’s hoof and found, as we expected, an abscess, which he quickly located and drained.

Lulu is walking find again; she will need a bandage on the foot until the abscess drains completely and dries out. It was a great relief; we are grateful to Matt.

And something else in the remarkable way of animals. Our barn cat Flo, who died a few weeks ago, loved to go up into the woodshed and sleep and hide.

We notice that some birds – we don’t know what kind – have taken over the space and love to perch by Flo’s window and gaze out the farm.

Nature is a beautiful thing. Nothing is wasted; everything has meaning. Animals teach me something every day about acceptance and living one’s life.  After all that storming, it was meaningful to see that animals marked our Christmas in many ways.

This was all a sweet cap to a few harrowing days. Life goes on. And on.

Bird photo by Maria Wulf