スミソニアン国立動物園のインスタグラム(smithsonianzoo) - 9月24日 00時55分

In honor of our giant panda program, we asked for your favorite memories of the Zoo's giant pandas over the decades. These are your stories. 🐼 #PandaPalooza

"My mother, Elaine Washburn, was an Asia Trail volunteer interpreter in the early 2000s. Mom had been a docent at the Ross Park Zoo in our hometown. When she moved to D.C. to be close to me it didn’t take her long to become a National Zoo volunteer.

Mom didn't actually want to be placed with the pandas. She asked to be trained in an area the zoo found it more difficult to recruit volunteers. But the arrival of Tian Tian and Mei Xiang and hopes there would be baby pandas in the not-too-distant future, meant with the pandas was where Elaine was most needed.

Elaine became one of the pandas' biggest fans. She enthusiastically shared her knowledge with visitors. She made friends with other panda enthusiasts all over the United States thanks to internet groups. In the summer of 2007, she decided she was going to make a point to see all the pandas in the U.S. She traveled to Atlanta, and Memphis and finally to San Diego to meet up with a group of other panda-loving friends. She had such a good time that summer.

Even a three-city tour, wasn't enough pandas for Elaine. Unable to afford one of the posh Smithsonian run tours to China, Elaine and her friend Angela who was a panda cam operator, decided they would put together a budget trip to China to visit the China Conservations and Research Center for giant Pandas at Beifengxia. It was all arranged and booked. Mom had a hernia as the result of having had an ostomy while healing from a perforated bowel a few years before. In advance of this trip, she decided she'd better have that hernia repaired. Unfortunately, mom died of a post-operative infection on September 25, 2007, a week after the surgery." (Story continued in pinned comment.)

Image description: a photo of a plaque with an inscription that reads, "In loving memory National Zoo volunteer Elaine A. Washburn from her friends and family."

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