Goodbye, Jane

[BoSoxGal]

Jane Goodall died today in Los Angeles while on a speaking tour of the US - she was 91 and still advocating tirelessly for our fellow earthlings.

I’m not ashamed to admit I wept like a child when I heard the news; when I read her first book In the Shadow of Man in college I wanted to run away to Gombe to join her crusade.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/obituaries ... rcna235001

Her last interview(?):

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

[BoSoxGal]

[liberty]

Do you remember Flint who was the youngest child of Flo, one of the most well-known chimpanzees in Goodall’s study? It was so sad and a true story.

[liberty]

Do you remember Flint who was the youngest child of Flo, one of the most well-known chimpanzees in Goodall’s study? It was so sad and a true story.

Flint loved and was deeply dependent on his mother, Flo. He was capable of taking care of himself; he could at least gather food, as Flo did. But after she died, he refused to leave the spot where she had died. He didn’t even attempt to gather food, as though he no longer cared whether he lived or died. Within a few weeks, he died in the same place his mother had.

Now that is a very human reaction. Even though we typically don’t die when our mothers do, we do miss them, and I still do miss mine.

[MajGenl.Meade]

he refused to leave the spot where she had died. He didn’t even attempt to gather food, as though he no longer cared whether he lived or died. Within a few weeks, he died in the same place his mother had.

Now that is a very human reaction.

No it isn't. I don't know of a single human being who ever did that. 'Tis sad tho.

[Burning Petard]

Death and grief for me always brings 'what if" thoughts. Rationally, I know I have no time machine and such thoughts are a waste of emotional energy.

And yet. What if Jane had been attracted to the study of the Bonobo?

Un answerable question. One good answer. I know my life is better because of what she did with her life.

snailgate

[Sue U]

Saw the title, immediately brought this to mind (sorry sorry sorry):

[BoSoxGal]

he refused to leave the spot where she had died. He didn’t even attempt to gather food, as though he no longer cared whether he lived or died. Within a few weeks, he died in the same place his mother had.

Now that is a very human reaction.

No it isn't. I don't know of a single human being who ever did that. 'Tis sad tho.

Meade I think in this regard either your life experience is lacking, or you’re not using your imagination.

I know many cases of people dying not long after a dearly beloved, there is even a cardiac condition named after the phenomenon - broken heart syndrome or takotsubo cardiomyopathy. A fairly recent and famous example was the husband of one of the teachers slaughtered at Uvalde who died a day or two after the massacre from cardiac arrest.

Some people commit suicide in the wake of the death of a beloved - some quickly by various lethal means and some more slowly by drinking or drugging themselves to death.

There are often cases of elderly couples where one dies and the other stops having the will to live, refuses to eat and quickly passes to join their beloved - among hospice and nursing home caregivers these stories are numerous.

Perhaps not a case where a person left behind stays at the exact location of the death of their loved one, but then the only reason for that might be the logistics of human activity and the recognition in the higher order human brain that their departed won’t be returning to the spot from whence they departed life. That said, certainly there have been cases where people have taken their lives at the gravesite of their departed loved one.

It’s been a long time since I read the story of Flo and Flint, and how Flint died about a month after his mother’s passing having shown clear signs of depression first. I don’t recall and can’t find confirmation that he lay the entire time on the spot where she died - but in looking up the story I was reminded that Flint’s codependency was a result of Flo’s having lost a younger chimp baby, having suffered in her grief, and having held onto the older Flint as a substitute for his younger sibling. Where he would normally have been encouraged to gain independence and eventually leave her side, he was instead encouraged by Flo to stay close and remain infantilized. That dynamic is most certainly one that we see in the higher order primates homo sapiens far too often - to the great detriment of the offspring.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Thanks BSG. As animal grief-suicide (starvation in place of methods available to humans) and overlooking the staying in place bit, you make a good point. Possibly in humans it should be referred to as a very primate reaction?

[BoSoxGal]

Thanks BSG. As animal grief-suicide (starvation in place of methods available to humans) and overlooking the staying in place bit, you make a good point. Possibly in humans it should be referred to as a very primate reaction?

It’s certainly a very primal reaction to grief that we share with other mammals, who knows how many. One of the remarkable things about Jane Goodall’s field work was that she destroyed the previous perspective held by the field biology community that other animals don’t think or feel like Homo sapiens. She observed on many occasions, not just with Flo, how chimp mothers would carry their dead infants for days/weeks as they processed the grief of their losses.

More recently we have all seen as an orca mother Tahlequah - from the Southern resident population - carried her dead calves for weeks on a ‘tour of grief’ in 2018 and again in 2024 when she lost them shortly after birth. So the capacity is not limited to primates and we’ve certainly seen grief expressed by elephants and even cows when their calves are taken from them.

I think Jane Goodall knew a truth that someday all of us will, that there will come a time when we look back in horror at the way we have treated our fellow earthlings in the face of dawning realization of their capacity for intelligence and love and all the other things many of us think are unique to our kind.

[liberty]

I reread what I wrote and realized I gave the wrong impression. I didn’t mean to imply that Flint stayed by Flo’s side until he died. He remained in the same general area, as if he believed that if he stayed there long enough, she’d find him. But instead, he found her.