I hear the sounds of a familiar disagreement bubbling up in the kitchen.
On one side: My husband, a reasonable, loving man, who wants our daughter to begin thinning out her vast collection of stuffed animals.
“Not all of them,” he insists. “Some of them.”
On the other side: our daughter, who loves each and every one as if they were all living things.
Normally, I’m not one to run from a good debate. I happily listen to both sides of the argument and try to come up with a compromise.
But in this case, there’s a big problem: I know her stuffed animal stories just as well as she does. Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, those stories tethered me to them.
Where would I even have her start if she were to begin bagging up her plush B.F.F.s? They’re spread throughout the house, organized in a fashion that happened organically, and is in no way a sign of favoritism. In the past, I’ve tried walking from collection to collection while she was in school, poking through them to pull out a few on the sly. That’s when my heart would start to ache.
I mean, how could we possibly part with Bunny? Bunny sat in my son’s room until the day he toddled into his baby sister’s nursery a few years later and handed Bunny over to her — out of the blue. To this day, this beat-up big bunny is her constant companion. He’s helped her through scary times, hugged her in celebrations, traveled around the country with us, kept her company in her sleep and brought a smile to her face more times than I could ever count.
Monkey, Banana and Pear are Bunny’s best friends. How could we break up that gang of misfits? She worked so hard at the “Claw Machine” to win those two pieces of fruit, and wrapped that monkey’s arms around them so they would never lose one another.
Consider my heartstrings pulled.
The twin jingly pink kitties: She teethed on them both, wrapped her tiny fingers around them as she braved nights alone in her crib with sore gums. Even just the sound of the chime inside could stop her from crying as a baby. I swear I can still smell her sweet baby smell on them when I breathe them in.
Then, there’s floppy brown puppy. Not long before my daughter turned one, she became violently ill, so I spent a couple nights locked up in quarantine at the hospital with her. On the last day, a musician came in to sing to her, and left behind a floppy brown puppy. It was only that afternoon, as she napped with an IV still taped to her arm, that I allowed myself to let go and cry, wiping my eyes with his fluff. He came home with us and is a reminder of how precious her health is — and how that musician made her dance and smile when things were frankly pretty terrifying.
Next: good ol’ “Sheepy.” For years, he was her favorite toy. He found himself in my purse almost every day, and wore doll clothes that she’d cram onto him without complaint. I’d tried to buy a duplicate in case he was ever misplaced, but it didn’t take long for me to discover that he was a one-of-a-kind. How could I ever consider letting him go?
And the red dragon she uses as a pillow? The fact that she chooses the most dangerous and magical of creatures she owns to comfort her says so much about her personality. As a result, I’ve been charmed into never wanting to see him leave.
There are the dolls I sewed for her that made her clap in delight when I presented them to her — despite them being my first attempt.
There’s a crooked pink bear we sewed together.
There are the dogs and bears and sloths and rabbits and koalas and flamingos and turtles that my husband — yes, the same person who keeps asking her to purge — continues to pick up for her at gift shops from around the world. Why? Because when he sees one that he knows will make her smile, he just can’t help himself.
When she reaches for one of these plush friends, I can see their history dance across her eyes like a love story. They’ve been there, watching her grow into the kind of girl I’d hoped she would be. And I firmly believe that they were a part of making that happen. She practiced kindness, respect, inclusion and love on these toys, and then carried those behaviors out into the world beyond our home.
I am grateful for what they have brought out in her.
I am grateful for how they have been there for her in times I couldn’t be.
And I’m just not sure I can let them go, either.
So yet again, I quietly back away from the standoff going on between my husband and daughter in the next room, hoping buy us both a little more time with them.
Kim Bongiorno is the freelance writer and author behind Let Me Start by Saying . She adores her charmingly loud family, who she pretends to listen to while playing on Facebook and Twitter . If she were less tired, she’d add something super clever to her bio so you’d never forget this moment.
