Feb. 4, 2020: Big Tusker Tim is dead. I looked at my email in disbelief. Impossible. I felt the gap between comprehension and acceptance in my gut. I saw him alive and well just 3 weeks earlier. Twenty Big Tuskers left on the planet—now there are 19.

The sense that the endless procession of elephants was for my personal growth? I balked at the thought—to claim such sacred moment for myself felt egotistical. Yet that’s how it felt. … My time in Amboseli continues to speak to me, like a dream that is so big that it refuses to let me forget and slip back into unconsciousness.