Simon is one of the sweetest animals I have encountered, today I was feeling heartsick after a friend messaged me that her daughter and granddaughter had been killed in the Kenya mall attack, and I sat out in the pasture and Simon came up to me and lowered his head and rested it on my head, and then he nibbled a bit on my hat and tried to slip my Iphone out of my shirt pocket and eat it. Failing all that, he just pressed his forehead against mine. “Sometimes, Simon,” I said, “I am heartsick,” and somehow I think he senses that, even if he doesn’t know the word.

The moral of the story is when you are heartsick about the awful things one human being can do to another, it is good to talk to a donkey about it.