I once had a stuffed pink poodle.
It spent its little lifetime lying among its inanimate counterparts, tucked under the covers of my chevron bed sheets until I would come home every day to rescue it from the tedious life that it spent constrained in my small room. In the nighttime, I’d tuck it back in beneath my blankets in its designated spot next to my pillow, in front of the rest of my stuffed animals, and I’d whisper to it a soft “Goodnight.”
Eventually, I began to take the poodle everywhere. I’d whisk it away to the store and sit its wimpy little legs up next to me in the shopping cart, making sure it didn’t get jumbled in with the flour, or the milk, or whatever my mother had bought that day. I’d take it to school with me and parade it around at recess, grasping it by the paw as I swung back and forth on the swing set. I’d lug it along with me to every family event, every birthday party, and every playdate until its shiny combed fur became matted and its pretty pink glimmer turned gray. And when the sun had set, without fail, I’d still return it to its reserved spot next to where I would lay my head at night.
Sometimes, I would let myself believe that, in the midst of the night, it would come to life. Its unmoving brown eyes would suddenly blink, and its inert limbs would climb a little closer to me. Whilst the wonders of a child’s imagination, I could have sworn it had moved a bit without my help.
And then one day I lost that pink poodle.
I checked the playground. I checked under the blue slides and the yellow monkey bars, in cupboards and locked in cabinets, trapped in my closet, wrapped under pillows, and buried in the grass. But yet I never found it, no matter how many crevices and corners I searched.
It was gone.
But for a while, I refused to believe it. So after school, I’d run off the bus to recheck the places I’d already searched a million times. I’d scour for hours in hopes of finding its droopy pink ears poking out from somewhere. Yet I never found it.
For a while, I was distraught. I stared at the empty spot it once inhabited on my bed like if I looked hard enough, it would suddenly reappear before my eyes. My mother even bought me a copy of the same poodle, but I could not care for it the same without its battle scars, its sagging head, and the signs of how much I loved it branded all over it. I could not imagine a day where I would not miss that little pink poodle.
But one day, I stopped searching for it.
I stopped letting the linger of its presence remind me of how it would never come back. I stopped wishing that it would come to life and crawl out of wherever it came from to rescue me from my sorrow.
I let it hurt.
And then let it go.
For I loved that poodle, but at the end of the day, it was full of stuffing; not a voice that could reply to me or a smile that could beam my way, nor arms that could hug me back or words that could console me.
It was only when I found peace in its absence that I was reminded of the fact that, one day, someone will come along who will care about me a thousand times more than that little stuffed toy ever could.
And I will not lose that one.
