Why I Couldn’t Stop Crying Over Cecil The Lion.
I could definitely be considered “emotional”, “intense” (words often used as code for “kookoo”), and easily moved when I witness hardship big or small.
But when I heard what had happened to Cecil the Lion, I didn’t just tear up as when worse tragedies happen – those that involve the loss of human life. For Cecil, I wept like someone I love (God forbid) had passed away. 
No doubt, the systemized targeting, hunting, and torture of an unsuspecting animal is heartbreaking. It’s wrong. It’s dark and cruel. And the fact that it was a regal lion, the subject of academic study who had 24 cubs, only makes it more appalling. And, lions are the archetype of strength and nobility in our mythology and human history.
But the part that made me cry the most was the luring and subsequent forty hours of torture. Because in order to be lured to one’s death, one has to be unsuspecting. Innocent. This animal, a predator of sorts in his own kingdom, was trusting and oblivious to a human predator. Cecil blindly followed his own instinct and DNA – his program for sustenance and survival – without knowing what fate awaited him. Cecil’s instincts deceived him. Cecil’s instincts were used against him, to bring him harm.
And yet, tears like that? It gave me pause. Is there some deeper sorrow, some personal chord this event, this loss, struck? I thought of my old, innocent and beloved dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback whose lineage goes back to Zimbabwe where these dogs were bred to be “lion hunters,” (actually, they were lion-herders… a wimpy dog like mine only hunts food in garbage cans). I pictured her being lured, her unsuspecting tail wagging as she cluelessly anticipated a reward, and it saddened me. But no, that’s too easy an analogy.
I thought back on other examples that elicited this kind of disproportionate emotional reaction, and remembered Aslan the lion of “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” and the image of the White Witch luring him out of his sanctuary before tying him up on a slab before torturing and killing him. Aslan’s face remained regal and still if not a bit sad. That scene leveled me as a child, and still levels me now. Cecil is Aslan, and Walter Palmer the White Witch. And in the aftermath of their death, we cry like children too, the way young Susan and Lucy in the story did:
The moon was getting low and thin clouds were passing across her, but still they could see the shape of the Lion lying dead in his bonds. And down they both knelt in the wet grass and kissed his cold face and stroked his beautiful fur – what was left of it – and cried till they could cry no more.
E.T, the sweet bug-eyed alien in my favorite movie, ET: The Extra Terrestrial, comes to mind too. The last time I wept like I did for Cecil was just a few years ago – when I watched it with my husband, then boyfriend. We had only been dating a few months and the movie happened to be on TV. When E.T gets caught by scientists and is found by Eliot in a ditch, his withering gray body twisted, I looked at my boyfriend, tears streaming down my face and called out with indignation: “He just wants to go home!”
(My husband told me later that was the moment he fell in love with me. Whatever it takes.)
He just wants to go home.
He just wants to be left alone, in his habitat, in his routine, free to be what he was put on this earth for. To live out his purpose with comfort and ease. E.T. just wants to be home. Just like Cecil.
Just like all of us.
When we cry over these ill-fated creatures – like the children cried over Aslan – we are not bestowing their existence with more importance than humans. Certainly not. Perhaps our tears and outrage over their wrongful death reminds us that innocence – our own rightful sense of home – can be shattered in an instant.
The murder of these animals – whether mythological or real – reminds us of the encroaching death of innocence. The flawed and susceptible innocence that lives within us, and in the darkening cruelty of the world we inhabit.
I’m so with you! Let’s not talk about Bambi’s mom!
Haha Barbara, you always manage to bring laughter to some heavy topics! Thank you for commenting.
I love the story about your response to ET and how that made your husband fall in love with you. So sweet!
The feelings we have around an animal’s death can be hard to understand, and I get the outrage of those who say our sadness is disproportionate. Your points here are beautiful and important and help bridge the gap between the two sides of the debate (I hate that there are sides). In the end, it is about respecting life and recognizing cruelty in all the many forms it can take.
Lynn, yes, I hate that there are two sides too, and I couldn’t agree with you more. Thank you for reading and commenting!
Definitely hits a cord for the countless billions of other lives that are taken each and and every year… This paragraph simply haunts:
“He just wants to be left alone, in his habitat, in his routine, free to be what he was put on this earth for. To live out his purpose with comfort and ease. E.T. just wants to be home. Just like Cecil.”
Cecil, in this way, seems to have been pushed into the role of a prime example for all of us to pause, and reconsider…
Unfortunately, this pattern of humanity oppressing, and then ending, the natural lifespan and simple “being” of another creature is the most common, and destructive habit worldwide, just in order to get what we want on our plates…
Here’s just one example 🙁
Cows, for instance, have a lifespan of 20+ years… yet we only let them live for about ONE unless they are dairy-producing mamma’s, and those we hook up to a machine non-stop… a quick online search yields this harrowing bit of news “To take full advantage of the excess milk which cows produce immediately after giving birth, the calves are usually taken from their mothers within the first two days of birth, causing suffering, anxiety and depression for both mother and child, as the maternal bond a cow has with her calf is very strong.
Under natural circumstances, the calf would suckle for anywhere between six months and a year. Like humans, cows produce milk for the benefit of their children, and therefore only lactate for around ten to thirteen months after they have given birth. The cows are therefore [artificially] re-impregnated approximately 60 days after giving birth to continue the cycle of milk production. Once the dairy cows are so worn out that they have produced all the milk they can, they are sent to slaughter, usually at around four or five years of age.”
Anywho… not a fun topic, never one I love to discuss… but your piece here really does raise a lot of good points.
And yes, I do think the anguish over this reveals a “deeper sorrow” and one that certainly “reminds us that innocence – our own rightful sense of home – can be shattered in an instant.”
Thank you for reminding me of the cow/calf’s plight, and I’m so glad this resonated and provoked thought. I appreciate your comments! XO
It’s an amazing thing to allow your emotions to run freely over the loss of an animal or even fictional visitors from other planets. And yes every second a child dies from some hunger related cause. I believe it is an internal defense mechanism carried by humans to not become emotionally invested in that which we as humans have every ability to stop. Man kinds inhumanity to man. If even that knowledge is subconscious, it cuts the wire. But animals and furry loving creatures get past that and unleash the pent up pain. That’s how I see it, at least. Wonder how many studies have been done on this very topic? It’s a good one.
Fascinating theory, Bob. This: “I believe it is an internal defense mechanism carried by humans to not become emotionally invested in that which we as humans have every ability to stop.” Thank you as always for your incisive and thought provoking comments.
As usual you’ve made me laugh and reflect and cry all in the space of 3 minutes. Thank you for sharing this. But with all due respect (you know I love you, babycakes) I have to disagree slightly with your final analysis. I think such deep grief stems not from the shocking remembrance of a lost innocence. This wrenching sadness cannot recall us back to some perfect place — home or happiness — because there *is* no such place to return to.
Instead I think in these moments we briefly sense an underlying better way things were always meant to be — and this sense brings with it a desperate knowledge of just how far we are from this, and that we cannot arrive there through our own power.
But that isn’t the end. The whole point is that Aslan, unlike Cecil, gets up again.
Akhoti! Thank you for your (per usual) wise insights. And yes, Aslan gets up again 🙂 I’m reserving writing about that significance for an essay (and apparently, a dream!). More to discuss. And wow, love and agree with this: Instead I think in these moments we briefly sense an underlying better way things were always meant to be — and this sense brings with it a desperate knowledge of just how far we are from this, and that we cannot arrive there through our own power.
So apt, so deeply affecting, that you brought Aslan into this story. And E.T.!
I think we’ll be talking about Cecil for a long time to come, and appreciate that we’re reaching together toward the greater good. How else, to make sense of this tragedy?
So true, thank you Melodye!