A stuffed animal named Parker.
One who goes by MooMoo.
And the most recent addition to the menagerie, Smudge.
My granddaughters and I are all attached to our sleep buddies at night. My younger granddaughter has had her little cow courtesy of her Great Aunt Brina and Uncle Kelly since baby days. The pacifier has been ditched, but Ellie and MooMoo are still hitched at the hip at naptime and bedtime.
Older sister Lillie’s connection to her Parker—who looks like a really cute rescue puppy—has another story. Parker came into her life after a real pet loss, a pandemic, and a realization that tangible reminders of those we love matter. Eleven years ago, my two
Eleven years ago, my two miniature schnauzers (siblings) died within six weeks of each other. That was a double whammy for me, and my grief kept me from wanting to get another dog(s). And I never have.
A short time after, my daughter Julie and I were shopping in a little shop in Coppell, Texas, where she lived at the time. In a small bin of stuffed animals, there was my new pet. Parker came home with me. I took him on road trips, carried him into hotel rooms, and left him once and had to have him mailed back to Gail, America, after a frantic phone call to a Hampton Inn in Austin. I made no excuses for being a proud stuffed animal owner in my fifties.
Fast forward to 2015 when I became a first-time grandmother. Lillie did not show any affection towards a specific cuddly creature. That’s why what happened in 2020 was so meaningful.
I had moved to Austin after retirement. The six-hour trip back to Snyder to see her and Ellie was manageable but not as often as the previous 30-mile trip from Gail to Snyder to which we had grown accustomed during her first four years. When the pandemic came, we went four months without seeing each other in person, from March to July. Zoom calls did not cut it.
The reunion in Snyder that summer was filled with constant companionship. At night, Lillie slept in my bed with me and Parker. We napped with Ellie and MooMoo and Parker. The two weeks together went by far too quickly, and tears flowed on departure day. Lillie walked me to the car, reached over my lap and retrieved Parker from his perch on my bags, and held him close to her little chest. No words spoken, but we both knew what was happening. Parker had a new home.
I was a ninth grader when I read “The Velveteen Rabbit.” It was the first story that opened my heart to how important childhood love is—whether it is love for family or love for something as simple as a stuffed animal. It is a delightful story published one hundred years ago, written by Margery Williams. The Rabbit learns from the Skin Horse that “when a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
Lillie saw that her Pearl loved a little stuffed animal.
Lillie needed Parker because she didn’t know how long it would be before she saw me again. Parker was her tangible link to a real bond between a little girl and her grandmother.
And who is Smudge?
The stuffed puppy I bought in Wilmington, North Carolina, with Julie after not seeing my firstborn for 15 months.
As real as real can be, love is. Just ask MooMoo, Parker, and Smudge. And Lillie and Ellie and their Pearl.
Snyder, Texas, native Sue Jane Sullivan is a retired schoolteacher whose thought-provoking commentary appears occasionally in several West texas newspapers, including The Texas Spur and The Caprock Courier.
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