Tag: Love

Lost Not Missing

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Photo by Sandis Helvigs on Unsplash

When my younger son, Andy, was 19 years old he was so thin the vertebrae in his back looked like rungs on a knobby ladder. Our nights were interrupted by Andy stumbling through the dark into the bathroom to throw up. His primary care doctor pronounced him “a little underweight.” This was like calling the Donner Party a little hungry. He gave us a referral to a gastrointestinal specialist and handed me a sample pack of antacids.

When Andy went for his checkup, his dentist suggested that he might be diabetic. The dentist took one look inside Andy’s parched mouth and then took a second glance at the 20 ounce bottle of water my son had at his side. When we met the next day with the specialist, I mentioned the dentist’s suggestion and Dr. P. ordered fasting lab work.

When the lab results came back, Dr. P. called me and told me to go find my son. The rest of the story included a trip to the emergency room where a nurse who wasn’t much older than Andy met us at the door with a wheelchair. I jogged along behind her bouncing pony tail as she pushed my son down a tiled hallway that echoed with the moans coming from the curtained rooms we passed. We did not stop to fill out paperwork or answer billing questions.

When Andy was three years old, I lost him while Christmas shopping. One moment I had his damp, sticky hand clenched in mine, the next I let him go so I could flip through a display of clearance sale clothing. It was enough time for him to slip from the store and vanish, swept along by the current of holiday shoppers. I grabbed my older son, Robert, and demanded, “Where’s Andy?” as though he had stashed him away like a toy he didn’t want to share.

Just as I found a security guard, we spotted two older women walking toward us. Grey haired bookends in sensible shoes, they each had a firm grip on my son. Andy did not look concerned at all. I thanked them over and over, and despite their quiet reassurances, I felt I should explain that I was a good mother, and I had at least managed to keep one child in sight.

During his hospital stay Andy mastered the art of insulin injections and glucose level testing. Soon after his release, he found a job at the local ice cream distribution center. He came home at night and told us “You can eat all the ice cream you want!”

“That doesn’t seem like the best job for a diabetic,” I remarked.

He worked in a refrigerated warehouse, tossing pallets of ice cream into the back of a waiting truck, an activity that required a heavy parka and protective gloves to guard against frostbite.

His career at the ice cream warehouse came to an unfortunate end after the plant manager locked him in the company parking lot one evening. Andy called to let me know he would be late for dinner, and might spend the night in his truck. I made the twenty minute drive to rescue him in less than fifteen minutes, and managed not to damage any property, run over any animals, or become the focus of a helicopter police chase.

As I pulled up to the padlocked gate at the parking lot, I saw Andy leaning against his bright red truck on the other side of the ten foot tall, wrought iron fence. We met at the padlocked gate and discussed options.

“I could throw a rock through the office window and set off the alarm,” he offered.

“I believe a more reasonable alternative is calling 911,” I replied. When the dispatcher answered I asked her to call the emergency contact person listed for the ice cream company. While my voice shook as I mentioned that Andy was diabetic, hers remained quiet and calm, and she assured me she would keep trying the contact number until someone answered.

I left Andy abandoned at the junior high school one night after band practice. My work schedule changed, and I thought my mother-in-law would pick him up, but she forgot I had asked. By the time I arrived home from work the street lights were clicking on in the dusk. I realized that Andy had been waiting for a ride home since four that afternoon. When I got to the school and pulled into the parking lot, there was enough light left to see Andy waiting outside the band hall, sitting on the ground and leaning against the brick building. When I asked him why he didn’t call someone to come get him, he replied, “I knew you’d miss me and come get me.”

While we were waiting for the 911 operator to call back with good news, a patrol car arrived. The policeman, a young man with perfectly clipped dark hair, rolled down his window as he pulled up behind my car. At first I wondered if his appearance had something to do with my 911 call, but when I asked the officer he said no. We must have made a curious pair of vandals, a middle aged woman in baggy shorts and house shoes, and a skinny, long haired boy in faded jeans loitering on the other side of the fence.

“How did you get in there?” The police officer strolled up to stand beside me at the gate.

“I stopped to check my oil and everybody left,” Andy replied.

I noticed the officer kept his hand near the cuffs on his belt, and I mentally went through the list of people who might provide bail money.

“My son is diabetic,” I said. I hoped the policeman would look at us less like criminals he might need to arrest.

The officer squinted in at Andy.

“Are you okay in there?” the cop asked, and glanced back toward his idling patrol car, outfitted with a crash bar. I imagined scenes from action movies where the hero busts through the gates and escapes. The officer seemed disappointed when Andy replied he was okay, but he was a little thirsty.

When the plant manager arrived he rushed up to the gate with his keys in hand and asked my son, “How did you get in there?”

Andy rolled his eyes and replied, “You locked me in,” and I realized that his future in ice cream distribution was over.

We headed home and I followed along down the highway behind Andy’s bright red truck. He changed lanes and passed cars and vanished over the crest of a rise in the road. I knew we would eventually arrive at the same destination, so I lifted my foot some from the gas pedal and sang along with the car radio. My son went on without me, lost from sight, but not missing.

All Our Wishes Granted

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Photo by Andrew Shaw

My oldest son, Robert, is an adult, but he has always been my challenging child. His youth brought parent teacher conferences because he could not sit still in class. In his teenage years he dressed in black and listened to music that screamed pain in lyrics only the young could tolerate. Not loved any less, or more, than his calm, quiet brother, but the child, and now the adult, always at the front of my worries. When my fiancé, Andrew, and I started dating, he understood that to love me was to also love my sons.

When Robert called me up and asked “Could we go look at the stars in Albany?” I asked Andrew if he would bring his telescope. We drove three hours to Fort Griffin State Historic Site, the closest dark sky location, far from the pollution of neon signs and city streetlights. We arrived just as the visitor center was closing, and picked up the keys to the small metal shed where we would all sleep, huddled under blankets on cots, and lulled to slumber by the rattle of the window unit heater.

Photo by Andrew Shaw

That night the sky was a jewelers’ black velvet coverlet, tossed with millions of diamond stars. We set up the telescope and peered at the moon, a half full round of blue white cheese. Celestial Venus, the bright goddess, graced us with her image. We hoped for shooting stars to tag with our wishes, but the stars refused to drop.

The next day we hiked across the dry brown prairie through the ruins of the fort. We imagined lonely soldiers stationed there, rising and retiring to the bugle call of reveille and taps, waiting out their service on the West Texas plains. We thought of them fishing on the banks of the Clear Fork of the Brazos River, while longhorn cattle grazed nearby among the tumbleweeds. The soldiers are long gone, but the official State of Texas longhorn herd remains, patient guardians of their outpost.

Photo by Andrew Shaw

We took pictures. While I stood at a distance and admired the cattle and their horns, Andrew weaved through the cactus and risked impalement to get a better shot. Robert pulled a black knit beanie onto his head to counter the cold wind, and leaned against the ruins of a stone shelter, alone in shadow under a cloudless sky. Andrew caught this unlikely portrait of Robert standing still, waiting for us to come back around and collect him.

Photo by Terrye Turpin

We left without a shooting star. Filled with the moon, soothed by the prairie, and cheered by the stars, we headed home content, as though nature herself had granted all our wishes.

I recently wrote a Shadorma poem as part of a writing challenge from The Creative Cafe. The poem was inspired by the photo I describe in this piece, and this story is the story behind the photograph behind the poem. You can read the poem, “Alone Not Adrift” here:

https://thecreative.cafe/alone-not-adrift-3c310d4becc1

Riding with Prince Charming

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Photo by Terrye Turpin on the Waterlogue app

My first steady boyfriend drove a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo Sport Coupe. The official name for the car’s color was Camel Brown, an unfortunate tag that suggests a lumpish, disagreeable animal. The license plate number was UAB711. I remember the license plate number because I spent most of the next summer, after we broke up, stalking him.

I met Mark through his best friend Johnny, who was dating my best friend, Ann. When he dressed up for a date Mark wore a velour pullover top, corduroy pants, and a splash of Jovan Musk. We started dating during my freshman year at Texas Woman’s University, where I found a strong fellowship of sisterhood but also a shortage of eligible young men.

Most of our dates we cruised around our home town in the Monte Carlo. Sometimes we would drive to Finch Park and make out in the parking lot in front of the Collin McKinney Cabin, a historical structure famous for hosting tours for elementary school children.

After we broke up, I still spent Saturday nights cruising the streets of McKinney, Texas, but I rode around with my best friend. Ann had a 1976 Datsun. It didn’t have a moon roof or wire spoke wheels, but it did have an eight track player, and I had a subscription to the Columbia House Tape of the Month Club.

There was an energy crisis in 1979, but that didn’t stop us from filling up the tank in the Datsun and tossing a suitcase filled with eight tracks into the back seat. On a typical Saturday night we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream, popped some REO Speedwagon in the tape deck and drove around crying out loud to “Time for Me to Fly.” I would search the streets for Mark’s Monte Carlo. I could recognize those headlights in the dark, and I perfected the ability to look long enough to see if the plate number was his, but not so long that he could see I was looking at him.

One weekend, dizzy with unrequited love and reruns of Love Boat, I came up with an idea. “Hey”, I said to Ann, “What if we took the For Sale sign from the house next door and put it in front of a different house?” I went on to explain that this prank would be funny, easy to pull off, and most importantly, untraceable back to us, the perpetrators.

“Oh, wow! Sure! Let’s do it!” Ann was loyal and easily persuaded, which made her both the ideal best friend and perfect accomplice in petty crime.

We headed out in the Datsun, not the most inconspicuous car with its bright yellow paint job, but it had a hatch back, which made it easier to load up the signs. We circled the block, gathering up and replacing signs throughout the neighborhood. We placed the last one in front of the Collin McKinney Cabin.

The next several days I alternated between guilt and worry that our crime would be found out. I imagined a crowd of angry, bouffant haired real estate agents. But we remained undiscovered. The next weekend Ann called me. “Hey! Guess what! I talked to Johnny!” I considered this.

“Did he mention Mark?” I asked.

“Yeah, and guess what!” Ann paused to laugh into the phone. “He tried to buy the Collin McKinney Cabin! Isn’t that crazy?”

I realized that my former boyfriend would never forgive me for this practical joke, and the sign that our relationship was really over had come from Century 21.

The rest of that summer we spent as Ladies in Waiting as we leaned casually on the hoods of our cars and pretended that the heat from the car engine wasn’t searing the flesh from the back of our thighs. We drank Boones Farm Strawberry wine from plastic straws in Styrofoam cups and kept Visine and peppermint candies in the glove box. While the late summer sun set and the street lights flickered on, we kept watch from grocery store parking lots and drive in burger joints while Prince Charming rode by in pick up trucks or silver Mustangs, black Firebirds, and sometimes a Camel Brown Monte Carlo, license plate number UAB711.

The Forbidden is the Sweetest

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I’m cheating on my fiancé. I’d feel bad about it, but I suspect he’s cheating too. The little foil wrappers are evidence of his infidelity. I’m smarter than that, mine are stashed in my trash can at work.

Andrew and I met online, matched up by our interest in hiking and our affection for cheese. His profile listed his food preference as “Vegetarian”. I envisioned cozy evenings at home, where I would prepare eggplant parmesan and Indian curries. I soon learned that his idea of vegetarian does not include many actual vegetables. He likes beans and potatoes, and sometimes expands his menu to include a salad. And cheese, of course.

I grew up with the ideal of the happy homemaker in the kitchen, nourishing her family with love and meat filled casseroles. There are only so many ways you can cook a bean. Eventually I gave up cooking for Andrew. We prepare our own meals and buy our own snacks.

The real problem, the forbidden love for both of us, is chocolate. The five month gap between Easter and Halloween barely gives us time to lose the weight we gain from discounted chocolate bunnies. Each holiday we vow to ignore the seasonal candy aisle, but I cannot resist a bargain and Andrew cannot resist the sweets.

When I mention to friends that my fiancé is a vegetarian, they give me a pitying look. What they don’t understand and what they don’t know, is that my loving a vegetarian means I get all the bacon, but I better hide the chocolate.

Precious Seconds and Past Regrets

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Photo by German Eduardo Jaber De Lima on Unsplash

“Often when we realize how precious those seconds are, it’s too late for them to be captured because the moment has passed. We realize too late.” — Cecilia Ahern

I never thought I would miss you. We met at just the right time in my life, but too late in hers. After my divorce I took up disc golf, a silly pastime for a late middle aged woman for sure, but it led me to you. I should have realized that a man whose every Facebook photo included a “Rock On!” hand gesture would not be disposed toward a long term relationship. You introduced me to “Prog Rock”, a genre of music adored by men dressed in leather kilts. Your own wardrobe choices led my son to ask “Dude, do you even own a shirt with sleeves?”

You had two cats. The younger cat was an aloof Russian Blue and Tortoiseshell mix. You named her after some Egyptian goddess with an unpronounceable name. I always felt intimidated by that cat. Precious was older, a shy solid black sweetheart that snuggled up to me at every visit. I could feel her bones shift underneath her skin as I carefully stroked her fur. She rumbled her approval while Younger hid, jealous and sly.

One time you accidentally shut Precious in the pantry, where she survived a day and a half in silence. I would have noted her absence.

We broke up in modern fashion, by text message.

“I just want to stay home with my cat”, you said, and I knew which one you meant.

I stayed friends with you on Facebook for a while, and saw when you posted that Precious had died. A short while later there was another post. You adopted a cat, a black Tortoiseshell. I understood your need but it saddened me to see her so soon replaced in your affections.

I never thought I would miss you, and I don’t. But sometimes I really miss that cat.

Our Proof of Devotion

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Image courtesy of Shutterdemon at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I am not a dog person. In fact, I think the perfect pet for me might just be a raccoon — one of those animals that are able to open trash cans and get their own dinner. Despite this, I agreed to watch over my friend’s pet while she was out of town for a week. Misty is the kind of friend who doesn’t ask for a favor, instead she presents the thing she wants you to do as a unique opportunity, one you’d be foolish to turn down. She pitched the dog watching as sort of a mini vacation, one in which I would share her apartment space with Clara, a bull dog with body odor and an allergy to grass. I spent the week with the dog because Misty is also the kind of friend who would gladly assist you with digging out a sewer line.

Her work space in the cubicle we share is decorated with an assortment of stuffed bull dogs and pictures of Clara. Here is adorable Clara holding a ball in her mouth, tiny Clara as a puppy under a Christmas tree, and contemplative Clara in sepia, posed in an old fashioned wash tub. How do you tell someone that you don’t care for their dog? It’s like admitting that you don’t like sunshine, or oxygen.

“I want you to come over this evening, so Clara can get used to you”, Misty told me the week before I was scheduled to stay. When I arrived at her apartment, Misty decided that Clara and I needed some alone time together, so my friend left to do some shopping. The dog and I were supposed to play together, to bond, but we wound up spending time doing what I often did with my children when they were young — we watched television. I brushed the dog hair off to clear a spot on the couch, and sat down. Clara settled next to me and fell asleep snoring.

When Misty returned Clara greeted her happily, jumping up and panting. “Did you have a good time?” I started to answer, but then realized that Misty was asking the dog for her opinion.

“Let me show you how to walk her.” My friend brought out a special harness and a retractable leash. The leash was one of those designed to give your animal the illusion of freedom, while guaranteeing that the dog owner will find herself wrapped around a tree or light pole at some point. Attached to the leash was a container that dispensed little bright blue plastic bags. “I want you to watch when Clara poops, that way you’ll know how much to expect, and how to know when she’s finished.” I tried to picture myself staring at the dog’s back end and gauging the size of the deposits while Misty continued talking. “And don’t let her eat any acorns or she’ll upchuck on the carpet, she’s allergic.”

“How many times does she poop?” I asked. There seemed to be an awful lot of those little blue bags loaded in the holder. Misty explained that Clara went at least two or three times during each walk. She offered to let me try the bagging after the first stop, but I told her that I thought I could figure it out later.

“You’ll be walking Clara first thing in the morning, and you’ll need to be home right after work, by six at least, to walk her again. Then wait thirty minutes for her stomach to settle, feed her two cups of food, and walk her once more before bedtime.” A quick calculation on my part estimated that was 16 or 18 little bags a day. I planned on double bagging. “All right, here’s the list of instructions, don’t forget the after dinner treat for her teeth. Her allergy medicine is in the pantry, if she gets in too much grass she’ll start scratching. The medicine knocks her out, so just give it at bedtime. You can sleep in my bed if you want, and Clara will probably sleep with you. If she whines that means she wants under the covers.” As Misty handed me the page filled with notes on the care and feeding of her dog, it occurred to me that I would have gotten off easier taking care of someone’s elderly grandparent or small child.

On our first day of walking I nervously tried to steer Clara away from the acorns that she wanted to slurp up like a furry Hoover. I did allow her to eat all the dried bugs she found, as Misty had not specified that these were forbidden. We stayed on the sidewalk, avoiding the grass until it was time for scooping. I hoped that the dog wouldn’t suffer an allergic reaction, since I couldn’t imagine how I would get her to swallow the sedative. I would have to take one myself first.

The second day of my visit with Clara, she met me at the door, tongue hanging out and what passed for a dog smile on her face. On the third day, I could see her watching me from the front window as I parked my car. Her flat doggie face, pressed to the glass, reminded me of those wives of long ago ship captains, pacing along the widow’s walks and searching for signs of their loved ones to return from the sea.

We passed other dog owners on our evening strolls. They stood and watched their pets drop the by-products of digestion, and then like good citizens they stooped to pick up the mess. We smiled and nodded as we passed, recognizing in each other that common bond — love for family, pets and friends. And waving a happy goodbye, we each went on our own way, carrying the proof of our devotion with us in those little plastic bags.

*This story previously published as “Devotion” in the Texas Writers Journal Q1 January 2014 issue.

Always the Last Place You Look

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I spent a good part of the morning on Christmas Eve searching our apartment for a book. The missing book was a collection of fairy tales that I received for Christmas in 1968, when I was eight years old. The book was a present from my parents, and I first saw it while it was still wrapped in a Treasure City shopping bag and lying on the floorboard of our Oldsmobile. I remember teasing it carefully from the brown paper sack while I kept an eye out to make sure my mother, in her place in the front passenger seat, didn’t spot me. After I flipped the book over and traced the outline of Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf on the back cover, I stuffed it back under the car seat. On Christmas morning I pretended that it had been placed there by a generous elf, but I knew the truth. I convinced myself that my parents were in direct communication with Santa, and were merely helping him out by picking up a few things on their own.

Now, half a century later, I couldn’t find it. It sounds odd to consider the loss of a fifty year old book unusual, especially from someone who regularly misplaces her wallet, but this book had followed me from childhood. My fiancé Andrew and I searched every book case and every stack of books in our 1200 square foot apartment. “Where could it have got to?” I asked as I bent over to look under the couch.

“Did you put it up here with the children’s books?” Andrew pulled out and glanced behind Richard Scarry’s “Best Word Book EVER” before sliding it back on the shelf in our dining room. I walked back to our bedroom, to look once more at the small bookcase there. I hoped that the book had somehow found its way back to the last place where I had seen it. It seems we are often falling into this, some version of “Have you seen my…” The older I get, the more things seem to go missing. I am either growing more forgetful or my possessions have decided to free themselves before the inevitable estate sale.

“No, it’s gone, I don’t think we’ll find it.” I continued to drift from room to room, including the bathrooms, in case I had tucked the book away amongst the collection of toilet paper I had stashed under the sink. Andrew followed along behind me, a terry cloth sweatband stretched across his forehead as though he were about to go for a jog. He is good like that, he often puts aside whatever he is working on to help me look for my phone, my purse, that book I was reading. He has adjusted very well to the responsibility of looking after another person’s possessions, while I drag along, resenting the imposition of caring for anything that can’t look after itself. I’m often setting down my phone next to a sink full of water, or leaving a plastic cup too close to the hot stove top.

I pictured the worn green and white cardboard cover of the misplaced collection, patched with clear tape. As I described the book to Andrew, he mentioned that I could probably buy a replacement on eBay. “But it won’t be the same!” I protested as I recalled the black and white illustrations that I colored in with crayons. I prepared to gather myself into a ball of self-pity, moaning something about lost childhood treasures, when Andrew asked where I had last seen the book.

“I think I put it with my photo albums,” I answered from under the bed. A moment passed and then Andrew called out.

“Here it is!” He found the book tucked away in a cardboard box in our spare closet. He handed it to me, and I flipped through the pages. Just as I remembered, every story began with “Once Upon a Time”, and generally each had a happy ending, but in between there was danger, often in the form of wolves or a wicked sorceress. Most had a handsome prince, trying to win the love of a beautiful princess. Sometimes the hero wandered lost in a dark forest, in need of enchantment to discover the magic castle. I put the fairy tale book back on the shelf and thought that this is what love really is, just two people, helping each other find things.

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I’ll Look for You Anywhere

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My boyfriend Andrew plays this little trick on me. The prank is funny, because I fall for it every time. And it’s irritating, because I fall for it every time.

We were having pizza at Cane Rosso when Andrew pointed over my shoulder and said “Hey! Is that Robert?” I immediately spun around and tried to spot my oldest son among the people coming in and out of the dining room. I considered and rejected the elderly gentleman leaning on a cane, and the young mother wrestling her toddler into a high chair.

“What? That guy!” The only person who might resemble Robert also outweighed him by about eighty pounds. Mentally I scrolled through images of Robert. There’s Robert as he looked in college, the Christmas I drove out to Lubbock to pick him up. It was snowing, and he came out of the dorm wearing flip flops and a short sleeved t-shirt, a large drawstring bag of laundry slung over his back. He had a scraggly beard and as he walked through the snow to my car, I thought he resembled a homeless Santa Claus. There’s the Robert wearing a ball cap and a plumbing company uniform, his name handily embroidered on the front. Or maybe it’s the Robert with silvery hair from Facebook photos.

I turned back around to Andrew and frowned, but not because I missed the pizza that he robbed from my plate while my back was turned. I was disappointed that the words “Is that Robert?” failed to conjure up my son. After a moment Andrew confessed and returned the pizza. Because what good is a practical joke if no one notices?

Robert and my younger son, Andy live nearby and are busy, grown men with their own lives. I’ll see them on holidays and birthdays, but sometimes I feel I’m more likely to encounter them shopping at Half Price Books or IKEA than sitting across the dinner table. It’s not unreasonable to feel that little thrill of excitement at the prospect of encountering one of them somewhere unexpected. It’s like when someone stops by your cubicle at work and tells you there’s birthday cake in the breakroom.

All it takes is a suggestion from Andrew that Robert might be walking in the door of the restaurant, or strolling through the park, and I immediately scan the faces nearby. We can be close to home, or hundreds of miles away, it doesn’t matter. I’ll feel that small disappointment, a failure on my part because I can’t find my own son in a sea of strangers.

When Robert was an infant I dreamt that I lost him, and I was forced to search through dozens of identical babies, trying to figure out which one belonged to me. Ironically it was his younger brother Andy that wandered off once in a mall. I spent a hellish fifteen minutes imagining him gone forever before I found him. I have never misplaced Robert.

One time I drove past the park where Robert’s first grade class was enjoying a field trip, and I watched from my car as he tossed sand on another child. I hesitated, and wondered if I should intervene, but then remembered that this particular misbehavior was not under my authority, it belonged to his teacher. This was the first time I realized that I would not always have to answer for my offspring, eventually they would find their own way in the world, and others would hold them accountable.

They are my family, but no longer my responsibility. They are my sons, but no longer my children. It is this freedom that makes every chance meeting a joy. Back when they were teenagers and I spotted them somewhere unexpected, it resulted in a series of intense questioning, and not a happy reunion.

I told Andrew that it’s okay if he continues to play the joke on me, as long as he returns the pizza he takes from my plate. But next time, I suggest, maybe he can say “Look! There’s Elvis!” instead.

 

No One Puts Squirrel Baby in the Corner (or in a box)

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Andrew and I are having a little disagreement over our newest companion. Andrew insists this innocent little fellow is the creepiest thing he’s ever seen. That’s a pretty bold statement from someone who has seen every episode of Miami Vice, including the one where they turn Tubbs into a zombie.

When I first saw Squirrel Baby on the shelf at the thrift store, I admit I agreed with Andrew. “Wow! That is really ugly!” I said as Andrew urged me to purchase the stuffed toy as a gag gift. But then as I gazed into his little blue plastic eyes I felt guilty, as though I had told someone that their child certainly was no looker.

Squirrel Baby is an Ann Geddes creation, that artist who specializes in posing babies in weird outfits to make them look like sunflowers or cabbages. He has a plastic baby face with a neutral expression that can either seem like he’s pleased to see you or that he’s gravely disappointed in you.  One of his plastic hands is clenched, like he might be thinking about punching something. The rest of him is covered in synthetic polyester fur. He even has a tail.

Squirrel Baby

 

“Please”, Andrew begged as I set Squirrel Baby up on my bedside table, “Let’s put him away in a box.”

“Hush!” I said as I placed my hands over Squirrel Baby’s soft ears. “He’ll hear you.”

“You’re scaring me” Andrew replied.

What Andrew hadn’t taken into account, before we brought Squirrel Baby into our home, was my nearly supernatural ability to anthropomorphize almost any inanimate object. I’ve stopped short of naming my socks, but don’t ask me to part with the porcelain two headed swan vase, the spooky owl portrait from the 1970’s, the sloppily carved wooden lion, or the ceramic Christmas elf.

I even have a framed photograph of someone else’s cat. It really is a spectacular cat.

Someone else's cat

We will also not include the 32 IKEA “Gravling” stuffed toy badgers. I bought the first one and then Andrew, afraid that IKEA would discard them, bought the rest when they landed in the clearance bin.

Badgers

When I was younger (like last month) I cried over The Velveteen Rabbit. I can’t bear to watch Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer because of the scene with all the forgotten toys abandoned on the Island of Misfit Toys. I still haven’t seen Toy Story 3, because I heard that’s the one where the child goes off to school and forgets all about his loyal toy companions.

Squirrel Baby sits beside me at my desk when I write, and occasionally I bring him into the living room to keep company with the badgers, or out onto our balcony where he can get some fresh air with the owls. I’m not going to put Squirrel Baby in a box, but I’ll pledge to Andrew that we will stop short of hoarding when it comes to purchasing cast off toys. Just because there are some rooms where we cannot walk through side by side doesn’t mean we have “goat trails.”

I do believe that the discarded, forgotten, and imperfect are deserving and need our love, for haven’t we all, at one time or another, resided on the Island of Misfit Toys?