Today Was the Day...
...the pandas left DC
We knew it was coming, we just didn’t know when.
Mei Xiang, Tian Tian, and our beloved miracle Xiao Qi Ji (aka Bikkie) walked into their crates, the crates were loaded on trucks and driven to Dulles, where they boarded the Panda Express plane to fly them to China.
If I had been in DC, would I have been tempted to hijack Bikkie’s truck? Drive the truck to Whidbey Island, visit my neighbors with the out of control bamboo forest at the bottom of the hill? Introduce Bikkie to all the tall trees? No tree guards! What fun we’d have.
As we contemplate our time without pandas (yes, they are still in Atlanta, at least for a few more months) I think about having pandas in our nation’s capitol for the last 50 years (The Nixon pandas! Then Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and all the cubbies!)
I love just about everything about pandas. There is something about them. Cuddly bears, majestic yet lovable. So round! So fluffy! So funny! I love drawing them and thinking about what they would say, if, ya know, they spoke English and talked to each other. And ran for president, for instance.
But the best thing about the pandas has been the real life friendships I’ve made through our mutual love of pandas; visiting them, traveling together to visit them, talking (incessantly) about pandas.
We are now united through our loss. I know it feels like more of a ripping away of a part of ourselves, to those who got to visit them weekly, if not daily. We have lost several of our panda loving community over the last several years. Loss compounded with loss.
The birth of Xiao Qi Ji (literally Little Miracle) got us through a terrible year. He was the best gift we could have gotten (until we got the gift of TFG’s loss in November) and I think I might have been crushed by despair without him.
He will live a great life in China. Mei Xiang and Tian Tian will have caretakers who love them and have a wonderful retirement. we will miss them mightily and if we get more pandas, we will love them too. In a few years, Bikkie might become a dad himself, bringing more pandas into the world.
For now, I’m going to rest with my thoughts of our beloved pandas, winging their way into their futures.
Of course, in The Panda Chronicles, the story will always continue.
Panda on, everyone.
As Mork would have said: {{heavy sigh}}
Don't you dare stop drawing and writing the Panda Chronicles Anne. We need them now more than ever.
I am devastated. I miss the pandas already! I had several people get in touch with me about the leaving of the pandas!
I have been sick to my stomach all day long. I thought of you and your great love of our sweetie pandas. I love my felted collection of all the panda characters you created. Bebe Maurice just cries and cries. Sister Mary Fluffy has been apportioning out adult beverages for those who need a restorative (me!)
And because of the pandas, I found you and your magnificent artistic talent and have been blessed by being friends
with you.
I am so glad you were able to see our sweeties before they left. I tucked Little Miracle in at night and would watch him sleep on the panda cam. I am just so sad. I am with liddle Bikkie--“it is too muchie!”
I hope you hold up, my friend. I just have a lump in my throat! Thinking of you!