For Mr. Pop's and Charles...

My sister has a turtle named Mr. Pops, which she acquired a little over a year ago while she was a student at THIS SCHOOL.

Well, actually, I should say that my sister had a turtle named Mr. Pops. Mr. Pops died last Thursday. I am told that he went peacefully in his sleep.

If you read my sister's blog you already know that we had a memorial service, and it was well attended. We buried him underneath the big oak tree in my father's front yard (don't tell the Highland Park police). My aunt brought her Bible and read a prayer, I was selected to read a poem, my father helped with the "burial", my sister cried, and the three dogs watched from the car (I have it on good authority that Gypsy Kitty prayed for the recently deceased).

It was a beautiful service for a loving member of the family (even if he was just a turtle).

Anyway, Mr. Pops shared his plastic habitat with a hippo named Charles. Mr. Pops and Charles are very close (I'm using the present tense on purpose because we buried Charles-the-hippo with Mr. Pops). Charles, you see, was never a really-real hippo. He was, in reality, a toy hippo - a zoo replica, if you will. But Mr. Pops always thought of Charles as being a really-real hippo (much in the same way that the Velvetine Rabbit was a really-real bunny). They were best friends and roommates, and it makes us all feel better to know that Charles accompanied Mr. Pops on his journey over the rainbow. I don't think that anyone would want it any other way.

As a tribute to Mr. Pops and Charles I would like to offer the following story about another turtle-hippo friendship:

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean, then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

"It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a 'mother'," ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park, told AFP.

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added. "The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it follows its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother," Kahumbu added.

"The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years," he explained.

I love that we live in a world where turtles and hippos - both great big and very, very small - can not only coexist, but live side-by-side like family.

So, goodbye Mr. Pops and Charles! Your legacy lives on and we will never-ever forget you!

~ RIP ~

~ MR. POPS & CHARLES ~

~ 2004-2005 ~