Gracie Communications

My father, Jay Byron Sinex, passed away on Oct. 27, 2001, at the age of 57. He was a complex, loving, intelligent man with a real twinkle to his eye.  He always had a joke or a story.  My former employer, Bruce Hetrick, captured one of my Dad’s stories shortly after his death. With his permission, I am reprinting it here in honor of my Dad and the giraffe that follows me everywhere.

Father’s tall tales survive as a treasured tradition

By Bruce Hetrick
Hetrick Communications
Originally published Nov. 19, 2001, in the Indianapolis Business Journal

On Halloween night, while treat-seeking goblins raced through suburbia, my wife, Pam, and I drove to the Shirley Brothers Mortuary on Allisonville Road to pay our respects. The deceased was an Indianapolis man named Jay Sinex. His daughter, Lisa, is our friend and colleague.

We walked from the parking lot beneath a full moon. But despite the observance of “all Hallow Eve” and the funereal setting, we saw no witches or bats silhouetted against the amber glow.

We signed the register and admired a snapshot of Mr. Sinex taken years ago. He gazed across some distant sea. Next to eh picture were facts about his life and a poem entitled “What Cancer Cannot Do.”

The room looked like all such rooms. At the front, the body lay in a wooden casket, the once-handsome man gaunt and bald from medicine that made him sicker than his disease. Flowers blossomed everywhere. Family photographs showed a young man, then a couple, then a family.

On a table behind a sofa sat lots of toy giraffes.

Around the room, family members and friends, co-workers and neighbors exchanged hugs and told stories. Some laughed. Some cried.  A few looked at the man in the casket and said their goodbyes.

When it was our turn, Lisa told us how it had gone at the end. She said she was sad, but after six months of knowing what was coming, she was prepared. She wished aloud that her dad had hung on a little longer, so “Papaw” could hold the granddaughter Lisa has been carrying inside her for nearly nine months-a child who will be called Helen.

But it was not to be.

We asked Lisa about the giraffes. She smiled and told us the story.

When she was little, Lisa’s family lived in a house on a “cornfield lot,” a place with no trees and no shadows stirring the darkness in a little girl’s room.

When she was 9, they moved to a new house. There were big branches on tall trees that knocked against the walls and kept Lisa awake.

One night, when Jay saw that Lisa was frightened in her new room, he told her not to be scared of the noise and shadows. It wasn’t anything evil, he said. It was just their pet giraffe foraging for food in the backyard.

Lisa had lots of questions, and Jay had all the answers. The giraffe never got away because the yard was fenced. The giraffe disturbed only Lisa because it preferred the leaves on her side of the house.

Over time, the giraffe story got more elaborate. One day, the pet giraffe stated talking-but only to Jay. Father Sinex had become a veritable Doctor Dolittle. With Jay translating, Lisa could tell the giraffe about her fears- tell him anything-and the fears would go away.

As the giraffe legend spread through the family, pet giraffe idols began to arrive. Aunts and uncles and cousins and neighbors sent stuffed giraffes and ceramic giraffes. They’d buy giraffe pencils and giraffe pictures and giraffe coffee mugs.

Jay Sinex had become Giraffe Man.

A few years ago, when he was in his mid-50s, Lisa bought her dad a one-of-a-kind Father’s Day gift. A friend where Lisa worked designed a genuine giraffe tattoo just for Jay. While Lisa and the pierced crowd watched through the front window of an Indianapolis tattoo parlor, Jay Sinex got a colorful addition to his right shoulder.

Last winter, I saw Lisa and her dad talking on a street corner near Circle Centre Mall. I walked over to say hello, and Jay said how much his daughter enjoyed working with us, and how happy he was that she was happy.

A few months later, he was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. The doctors said they could extend his life and ease his pain, but not save him.

On Nov. 1, Shirley Brothers buried the body of Jay Sinex, tattoo and all.

This week, the Sinex family’s Thanksgiving table will have one empty seat, another round of grief and a wealth of gratitude for tales that chased away the scare. Soon though, maybe before these words are published, Lisa will give birth to baby Helen, and a high chair will fill Jay’s spot.

And a few years from now, when branches brush against the windowpanes and shadows dance across the moon, a young mother named Lisa will say to her daughter, Helen, “Don’t be afraid. It’s nothing evil. It’s just Papaw playing with the giraffe in the back yard.”