There she was. The most beautiful creature I’ve ever encountered stood right in front of me.  My six-year-old son Tommy sat beside me observing the massive creature. He was snack sized compared to the animal. He has short, shaggy blond hair, and his blue eyes twinkled. His pearly white teeth smile and his shyness added more to his cuteness. It was the first time he’d ever been this close to one of our rescued animals. 

“Have I ever told you the story about Georgie, Tommy?” I asked. 

Tommy replied with a simple, “no”, and continued to watch the massive giraffe that stood before him,

 “Well, did you know that she’s been to many different homes before and that she used to live in Africa?” I said. Again my son replied with a simple, “no”. 

“Well son, before Georgie lived here, she lived somewhere called the Johannesburg Zoo. It was a beautiful place Tommy and probably one of the largest zoos there, but there was an accident,” I said. 

 “Well, what happened? Tommy said. “Was it really that bad? Did somebody die??”

 I smiled and tried to continue my story even though I had to stop myself from laughing.

 “No Tommy, there was a fire.  A bad fire. No one had been there that night and one of the heaters exploded.”

 “Oh.” His face fell a little.  “Did any of the animals die?” he asked.  

I remembered the phone call my father had received the morning after the accident. The zoo had lost a number of the animals on the north side of the park. The animals on the north side had been trapped and weren’t able to be rescued. They were the closest to the explosion and were likely the ones who died first.

I chose not to tell Tommy this. Especially with death.

 “I was only a little older than you Tommy. You know Grandpa Rich?” I said. 

“Of course! I love Grandpa!” He yelled.

 I laughed. “Well, Grandpa went to the Johannesburg Zoo after the fire. He was there for about a week helping with the cleanup. Most of the zoo had been burned to ashes and all that remained were the enclosures to the south. My father Rich had told me that even though so many animals had been rescued, he would never forget how many bones he had found while cleaning up in the north side. He planned on going to the temporary facility where the animals were being held. This was a basic setup in a field where all the animals that survived were sent. The smaller animals, like birds, reptiles, bunnies, just simple creatures, were put in cages. The bigger animals, like Georgie, were put in a bigger enclosure and sometimes even just fences. Some of the animals were put in giant, wooden boxes, but those were more of the dangerous ones like tigers and lions. Once Grandpa finished helping with the cleanup he went to the facility and tried to find someone who could help him in buying some of the giraffes. They had four there and Georgie was one of the female giraffes that they had.” 

I looked down to where my son was sitting. Years ago, my father had stood in this same spot telling me the story about how his love for this job came to be, and now, here I was doing the same thing. 

“Grandpa was looking for the giraffes when he went down there, too. Especially this kind of giraffe. Do you know what kind of giraffe Georgie is Tommy?”

 Once again he replied with , “no”.

 “Georgie is a Northern Giraffe son, and Northern Giraffes are an endangered species. When Grandpa went to the rescue facility where they had placed all the animals temporarily, all the giraffes had been sold! Grandpa had been told that while he had been helping clean up all the damage, different buyers had bought the giraffes.

 “Uh-oh,” Tommy yelled. 

“Uh-oh’s right, buddy. Grandpa came home very grumpy, and he even went on a scavenger hunt for Georgie!”

 I could tell the story was intriguing my son because his attention was now all on me. His cute little eyes staring up at me eyes wide and his mouth slightly opened, his eyes staring at me like I was a ninja warrior getting ready for battle.

 I continued on, “Grandpa called many reserves and other zoos, and I think even Grandpa got tired of trying to find her.” 

Tommy sat staring at Georgie in awe. He had even started to pet the massive giraffe. 

“One day, Grandpa got a call. Do you think you can guess who it was from?”

 My son barely even glanced at me, now refusing to take his attention away from Georgie, and then shook his head. I smiled. 

“The owner of the Johannesburg Zoo called him, Tommy. He had found out that Grandpa was looking for the giraffes that had been there and decided he wanted to help.”

 I remembered how the call had affected the park. Everyone had been rushing around, and I had been so confused. It was the best thing ever, and honestly, it was. At the time, we didn’t have a giraffe exhibit. My dad had been very specific about the kind of giraffes he wanted and how important it was. Sure enough, he was right. 

 “The man told Grandpa that whoever had been put in charge of selling the animals sold the giraffes to multiple different places. He also told him that the person who was in charge of all the finances had wanted all the animals gone as fast as possible so they could clean up the land and sell it faster to get more money.”

 “Did that hurt Grandpa?” Asked Tommy. I chuckled. 

“Not as much as it made him upset. The owner eventually gave Grandpa the facts about where each giraffe had gone and told him that he wished him luck.”

 I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tell my son the next part. 

I had been eight when this had all happened, and it was horrible.  Imagine if I had been younger like Tommy. Who knows how traumatic or maybe even confusing it would’ve been for me. I mean, it wasn’t like we knew exactly what each animal had gone through during their time with these horrible people, but I decided to tell him anyway. 

“The zoo had sold Georgie to a circus. Do you remember that one time when you went to the circus with mommy?”

 Tommy nodded and smiled.

 “It was so much fun. I saw elephants!!” He yelled. I ruffled his hair.

 “Well, that’s where Georgie went Tommy, but the people weren’t very nice to the animals and when Grandpa got to go to one of the shows Georgie wasn’t there!”

 At the last minute, I had decided to just tell Tommy that he had only been to the circus for a short time, and I also left out all the abuse. When my dad had gone there, he hadn’t physically seen any of the animals get beaten, but I remember when he came home, he talked to my mom about the harsh conditions. My dad had explained to her that while he was waiting to talk to the host, he was looking at the animals. Apparently, my father had seen scars and cuts on each of the animals, and on top of that, there was no food or water in their cages or enclosures. My dad never said anything about the animal’s condition to the host, but he did call the police and inform them about the possibility of abuse in the situation. 

“Well, Grandpa found out that Georgie had been sold to another extremely small zoo in Africa. It was called The Zoo, and it was a horrible place. It was small Tommy. The people there were very unpopular, so they never got any visitors. They could barely afford to get the animals food and water.”

 My son gave me a sad look and said, “But doesn’t that mean they would die?” I nodded. 

“So, Grandpa bought Georgie back for a ton of money, and not only did we get Georgie back but also we helped the zoo get back up and running,” I said. “After that we took Georgie home and made one hundred percent sure that she was taken care of.”  

I remembered the vet coming over every other day, and they had even sometimes stayed the night there especially in the beginning because Georgie was so weak. She was severely dehydrated, and we could see her ribs and bones because she was underfed.  When we first gave her a bath when she got here,  she was so disgusting and dirty. Georgie was coated in dirt and mud and after washing her we could see how matted her coat was. We saw spots where fur was missing and even scars along her sides and legs. There were even tiny cuts and slashes where she had been cut by the thorn bushes in her enclosure, but that’s only what I had heard my father say. The worst part out of all of it though was moving her. Georgie was so weak,and even then, it was hard for us to get her to eat sometimes.  I had never seen an animal so weak and hurt like she was. At first, I was scared to even touch her. My father stayed overnight in the building where we had been keeping Goergie, and there were days where I don’t ever remember seeing my father because he was always staying with Georgie. As time passed over the next couple months, it was like everything was quiet. The park had been shut down for a while due to Georgie’s arrival, and along with the new renovations, there was this period of concern and uneasiness that had settled into the park because many people had thought the park was shutting down. The workers were worried too. Georgie was sick, and there were a couple times when we thought we were possibly going to lose her. My father, the vet, and other volunteers even had tried to get Georgie to stand up one night and move, but nobody could get her to. These were the worst days. She wouldn’t eat or drink. She never moved; she just laid there like she was dead. It became tiring. Weeks passed and things would get better, but then she would fall back. In the beginning, we had to use an IV to keep her hydrated because she wouldn’t drink. After a month of shots, IV’s, and impatient waiting, Georgie was finally able to be let out in one of the smaller enclosures. For a while, she did really well, but one night there was a horrible storm. The wind howled and shook every wall. It was pouring, and the lighting and thunder made it seem like it would never stop. I was at home with my parent’s, and my dad got a phone call from one of the workers. Apparently, Georgie had gone psycho and was trying to break out of her enclosure. The next morning my father was told that they had had to use a tranquilizer dart on her because she was going to hurt herself. Georgie had broken one of her legs and even cut her side open from trying to break out of her enclosure. It had taken over a year to get even close to a full recovery, but after months and months of rehab and vet checks and a rebuild of the giraffe enclosure, Georgie was looking a whole lot better.

  “Ever since, Georgie has lived here Tommy, Isn’t that cool?”

He smiled and nodded his head furiously. 

“I wanna stay here forever!!!” He screamed. I smiled. 

“So what do you  think of Georgie, Tommy; what do you think of this place?” I asked. 

Tommy only replied with one word. “Wow.”