It is not just a simple photograph.

It is a farewell.

A goodbye between two beings united by a bond that defied species, words… and loss.

Her name was Ndakasi.

Mountain gorilla, orphaned by cruelty, raised by tenderness, and now immortalized in the arms of the man who was, for her, a whole world.

Thirteen years earlier, in the shaded depths of Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rangers discovered a tiny gorilla — trembling, silent, motherless — clinging to the lifeless body of the one who had given her life.

Her mother, shot by poachers, a victim of brutality and bushmeat hunting.

She was only two months old.

That night, André Bauma, a young ranger, did the only thing he could do: he held her close, cuddled her against his body, and, thanks to the warmth of his body, fought against death.

And he won.

From that moment on, she was his.

And him, hers.

Ndakasi grew up under the protection of André, at the Senkwekwe Center — the only orphanage for mountain gorillas in the world.

She laughed. She played.

She posed — becoming famous in 2019 for mischievously crashing a ranger's selfie, standing like a human, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

Millions of people smiled at this image.

But few knew the story behind this smile.

She was more than just a gorilla.

She was a survivor.

From war, poaching, habitat destruction, and mourning.

She embodied the living proof that love can bring back what violence had tried to annihilate.

And then, thirteen years later, illness came. Her brave heart weakened.

André never left her.

Not an hour. Not a breath.

And when her body no longer had the strength to fight, she did the only thing she had always known: she laid her head on André's body and faded away in the arms of the man who had once given her life.

Can one imagine that?

The breath of her last breath?

The weight of her head against his heart?

And the silence that followed?

This is what love is.

This is what grief feels like when you have seen a soul brush against death… then return.

She was more than just an animal.

She was a child.

A sister.

A friend.

A spark of light in the fragile web of life that we break too often without thinking.

Let us speak her name:

Ndakasi.

The gorilla who smiled at the world, and faded away in the arms of the one who never stopped loving her.

May her memory shine like a candle in the night.

And that her story reminds us that every living being deserves to be protected, to be at peace, and held in arms — even at the very last moment.

#Ndakasi #AndreBauma #Virunga