An Elephant in the Room poem (warning DD pics)

The TTCAL board uses an elephant as their mascot.  Here is a little background as to why...  Elephants it seems are much like humans with grieving. It has also been said that when a mother elephant losses a baby, the herd gathers round her and waits til she is ready to move on.  I think that is how we are with each other here.  We gather round to support each other until we are ready to move toward the future.

One of the most moving displays of elephant emotion is the grieving process. Elephants remember and mourn loved ones, even many years after their death. When an elephant walks past a place that a loved one died he or she will stop and take a silent pause that can last several minutes. While standing over the remains, the elephant may touch the bones of the dead elephant (not the bones of any other species), smelling them, turning them over and caressing the bones with their trunk. Researchers don?t quite understand the reason for this behavior. They guess the elephants could be grieving. Or they could they be reliving memories. Or perhaps the elephant is trying to recognize the deceased. Whatever the reason, researchers suspect that the sheer interest in the dead elephant is evidence that elephants have a concept of death.

Researchers have described mother elephants who appear to go through a period of despondency after the death of a calf, dragging behind the herd for days. They?ve also witnessed an elephant herd circling a dead companion disconsolately. After some time, and likely when they realized the elephant was dead, the family members broke off branches, tore grass clumps and dropped these on the carcass. Another researcher noted a family of African elephants surrounding a dying matriarch. The family stood around her and tried to get her up with their tusks and put food in her mouth. When the rest of the herd finally moved on, one female and one calf stayed with her, touching her with their feet.

Poem...

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

There?s an elephant in the room.
It is large and squatting,
so it is hard to get around it.

Yet we squeeze by with,
?How are you?? and, ?I?m fine,?
and a thousand other forms of trivial chatter.

We talk about the weather;
we talk about work;
we talk about everything else?
except the elephant in the room.

There?s an elephant in the room.
We all know it is there.
We are thinking about the elephant
as we talk together.

It is constantly on our minds.
For, you see, it is a very big elephant.
It has hurt us all, but we do not talk about
the elephant in the room.

Oh, please, say her name.
Oh, please, say ?Barbara? again.
Oh, please, let?s talk about
the elephant in the room.

For if we talk about her death,
perhaps we can talk about her life.
Can I say, ?Barbara? to you
and not have you look away?

For if I cannot,
then you are leaving me alone
in a room?with an elephant.

--- Terry Kettering