One Lonely Giraffe: A Fable of Grief

It’s a chilly afternoon in November.

The mall is quiet. A few people starting their holiday shopping. 

Two women walk into a store. It’s the kind that sells decorations for the home. Animals carved from wood, tapestries woven from silky strands.

Although they don’t look alike, you can tell they are related. Mother, daughter.

The mother is petite. She has green eyes and curly hair. 

The daughter is taller. She pushes a double stroller with a small boy on one side. He is perhaps two. Next to him sits a baby who looks about six months old. They wear matching striped t-shirts and blue shorts.  

The 2-year old smiles at everyone who passes. He waves, all outstretched palms. At first glance, the baby is quiet. Yet when you look closer, he appears to be disconnected, as if an inner world beckons him. His eyes are downcast. 

The daughter bends close to the stroller. She hands one boy a bottle, the other one a sippy cup. She breaks off pieces of banana. The little boy accepts it eagerly. The baby bats it away.

The two women talk in spurts as they wander through the store. The mother mentions pink flowers she grew over the summer. They flourished, covering the ground with their delicate petals. She is proud.

The daughter smiles and shakes her head. Coaxing blossoms from the earth is a mystery to her.  

She glances at her mother’s profile. Though their eyes are different, they have the same nose. She thinks about sharing her unease about her smallest son. She badly wants to confide in someone how he squirms against her body whenever she holds him. How a certain word has begun to form on the periphery of her subconscious.

Autism.

But she doesn’t. She keeps this information to herself.

There is a jagged history between them. You can tell by their body language. The way they politely wait for the other to speak.

The mother spies a wooden giraffe in the corner of the store. She walks over to it. Her daughter follows with the stroller. 

Together, they admire it. The workmanship. The long, sleek neck. They talk about the price. The mother nods her head. She wants to buy it.

A salesperson is found, a box brought out from the back.

Once at the register, the mother grows anxious. There is a flurry of conversation. She wants to see inside the box. She is worried something different than the coveted giraffe is knocking around inside the cardboard—that she will be shortchanged. 

Suspicion rules her. She doesn’t want this. She just doesn’t know any other way to be.

Her mind tells her stories. She is powerless against them.

The daughter doesn’t see the stories. She only sees the way they tarnish every interaction.

It’s not so much the asking to see inside the box, it’s the strident way in which it’s asked. It is accusatory. It puts everyone on edge.

The daughter is familiar with the rise of her mother’s voice. She knows rage is next, possibly a scene.

The mother holds her ground. She wants to see inside the box. Scissors are found in a drawer beneath the cash register. The box is opened. Inside, a hidden surprise. A bonus. 

Two giraffes inside, instead of one. What could have been an unexpected delight unwrapped at home is now taken away. The joy of the purchase has vanished.

The two women walk back out into the mall’s fluorescent light, one lonely giraffe inside a plastic bag. The distance between them has expanded once more. They cannot find each other. They don’t know how.

More than eighteen years have passed.

The woman who once pushed the stroller is nearly fifty. Her family has grown since that day. Two more boys, and a daughter of her own.

The word that once circled her mind is now a permanent piece of her landscape, the way the dusky moon is part of the sky.

Autism.

Now, she sits on her porch in the mid-July heat.

She thinks of green, of cardboard, of striped t-shirts and two giraffes for the price of one. 

She thinks of her mother, reduced to ashes a week ago.

She looks at her flowers. Pink petals in pots, because the ground’s soil still bewilders her. 

She looks down at the phone in her hand. She reads the message, then she reads it again. She closes her eyes. She thinks of tapestries, of silky strands, of animals carved from wood.

“Carrie, I went to the house today. I saw the giraffe. She kept it in her room, by the window.”