--- title: Dying Zoo Employee Receives Goodbye Kiss From Giraffe in Rotterdam description: So sweet, so sad canonical: https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/ author: Jessica Roy article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-03-21T13:35:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:08:01.010Z og:title: Terminally Ill Zoo Employee Receives Final Kiss Goodbye From Giraffe [PHOTO] og:description: So sweet, so sad og:url: https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Terminally Ill Zoo Employee Receives Final Kiss Goodbye From Giraffe [PHOTO] twitter:description: So sweet, so sad twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Terminally Ill Zoo Employee Receives Final Kiss Goodbye From Giraffe by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Mar 21, 2014 1:35 PM UTC by [Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/) ## Jessica Roy Mar 21, 2014 1:35 PM UTC > [](https://twitter.com/Independent/status/446944161296441344) In case you needed a good cry this morning: _The Independent_ [reports](http://time.com/33228/woman-returns-shoe-she-stole-from-hulk-hogan-beach-shop/) that a maintenance worker named Mario at the Rotterdam’s Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo is suffering from terminal cancer and asked to be wheeled into a giraffe’s habitat so he could say his final goodbye to the animals. “These animals recognised him, and felt that (things aren’t) going well with him,” Kees Veldboer, the founder of the Ambulance Wish Foundation, said. Ummm is someone cutting onions in here?? ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/"},"headline":"Terminally Ill Zoo Employee Receives Final Kiss Goodbye From Giraffe","datePublished":"2014-03-21T13:35:46.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:08:01.010Z","description":"So sweet, so sad","url":"https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/","keywords":["Newsfeed","animals"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jessica Roy","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/33361/terminally-ill-zoo-employee-receives-final-kiss-goodbye-from-giraffe/","name":"Terminally Ill Zoo Employee Receives Final Kiss Goodbye From Giraffe"}}]}] ```