West With Giraffes

by Lynda Rutledge

Red was gone and so was the Old Man, but I still had the giraffes—and because I did, I also had Red and the Old Man. It’s a strange thing how you can spend years with some folks and never know them, yet, with others, you only need a handful of days to know them far beyond years. As I headed back to the giraffes, I knew I was never letting the Old Man’s darlings far out of my sight again. I was in California and I was with the giraffes. That was as much of a Promised Land—or home—I figured I’d ever need.

Time heals all wounds, they say. I’m here to tell you that time can wound you all on its own. In a long life, there is a singular moment when you know you’ve made more memories than any new ones you’ll ever make. That’s the moment your truest stories—the ones that made you the you that you became—are ever more in the front of your mind, as you begin to reach back for the you that you deemed best.

Instead such times held less pain because of two animals I once knew.

It is a foolish man who thinks stories do not matter—when in the end, they may be all that matter and all the forever we’ll ever know. So, shouldn’t you hear our story? Shouldn’t you know how two darling giraffes saved me, you, and your mother, a woman I loved? And it is a selfish man who takes stories to the grave that aren’t his and his alone. Shouldn’t you know your mother’s brave heart and daring dreams? And shouldn’t you know your friends, even though we’re gone? I knew, then, there was something an old man could do. I found a pencil and I began to write.

If there is any magic left in a world without gentle giraffes, if that bit of God I saw in those sky-high wonders is still alive somewhere holy and true, a good soul will read these pencil scratches of mine and do this last thing I cannot do. And one bright and blessed morning, the giraffes, the Old Man, me—and your ma—will find our winding way forever to you.