I watched Marley and Me last night (again), and unashamedly sobbed my heart out (again). Even my husband had a little tear in his eye.
It got me thinking about just how strong the bond is between a pet and their owner, and then that led me onto how strong the bond is between a parent and a child. Even in the animal world, the bond is strong between a mother and their young. True, there are some animals who just abandon their young as soon as they are born, but these species are few and far between.
We witnessed a great display of motherly love a few year ago whilst on safari in Sabi Sand, when a pride of 12 lion took down a young buffalo, and the mother came back to defend it. Single handedly she fought the lions off her baby, and then when the rest of the herd saw that she was putting up such a fight, they all came back too. 12 lion versus 150 buffalo – not surprisingly, the buffalo won the battle, and the lions were chased off into the bush to recover. And boy, did the 4 of us in our game vehicle cheer and clap when we saw the baby buffalo shakily get up and follow his mother closely as she led him away. Getting all misty eyed again now just remembering it…
So just to round off this short blog, I did a quick trawl of some of my favourite images of mother/young love. I hope you like them as much as I do.
