Why Elephants?

After weeks of being unable, upon awakening, to recall the merest shred of dream and worrying that this inability signaled the beginning of general memory loss (does our age have any greater personal fear?), I have been happy the last two mornings to have carried a few images into my first conscious moments of the day. The images are not important in themselves; it is remembering them that is important. Today, for instance, I remember a mother elephant and her child, separated from one another in a large, abandoned garden surrounding an old mansion. "Why elephants?" my friend Laurie would ask, wanting to find significance for the dreamer in the dream. Why indeed? There was an elephant in one of my dreams the night before, also. All I can say is that as last night's little one trotted anxiously about the garden, looking for its mother, its ears flapped up and down in the most adorable way, just as my Nikki's ears (much smaller) used to do when she trotted around the yard here at our old farmhouse. And the night before, besides the elephant, there was a little black dog in my dream. The comfort in this is that as long as my memory serves me, my dear dog will continue to be with me in spirit.