This story is not finished yet. The legs are still disconnected and some stripes are missing. 

That is about to change this week.

The dismantled zebra spent over forty years gathering dust in my Daddy’s shop. When we sold our homeplace on Enwood, we moved the zebra to the mountains.

I hired the neighbor’s children to help me take the zebra outside and brush it off and hose it down.

We carried it back in the basement for me wipe it down and dry it off. Then I carefully rubbed it down with special oil.

My neighbor helped me load the zebra into my car.  I drove it to a special place for rehabilitation. I pondered its sentimental value against the rehabers’ cost estimate. How much is an old zebra worth these days?

I stood by my car looking at those old legs wondering what to do. I thought of its long journey; from Piqua, Ohio to Lenoir, North Carolina then to Charlotte and finally to this place in the mountains.

I had to trust my ancestors who bought the zebra and kept the zebra and dismantled the zebra and moved the zebra. I had to trust my father, the woodworker, who stored the zebra in his shop for decades. Who was I to determine its value?

They will start work on it this week, stripping it down and repairing it. Then we will go examine it and choose the color of  its new coat.

Something about this gives me peace. That I have done my part in this arduous journey and now, at last, the zebra will be whole again.

Maybe that’s all any of us are supposed to do…Our part. Not the beginning, not the ending…just a leg of the journey.

I will share the results when this story ends. For now, we will trust the zebras handlers to do their part and bring the zebra back to life.

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