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Peanut is Gone!
There's a huge pile of stuffed animals beside my
daughter, Molly's bed. Bears, tigers, puppies, an
alligator, a moose, and even a few human infants.
They all lay ignored by their now eight year old
owner. Moving them all once again to vacuum, I even
found an expensive designer doll that Molly begged
me to buy her for Christmas one year. I feel
vaguely sorry for these abandoned beings, like the
castaways Rudolf the Reindeer met in the land of
misfit toys.
Each of these animals and dolls had their day.
Some lasted as a favorite for over a month. Others
were a just flash in the pan at a birthday party,
cuddled for two minutes, then tossed in the pile
with the rest of the has-beens. Despite their
neglected state, I would be roundly chastised
should I ever suggest that perhaps they are now
merely clutter, which we could clear to improve the
bedroom's feng shui. "Dad is such a boar!" is the
unspoken opinion toward the family member whose
sense of practicality scores much higher than his
sense of sentimentality. "He doesn't understand
anything."
But there is one animal who does not sit in this
pile. Peanut is a little baby stuffed monkey.
Peanut has enjoyed the royal honor of being Molly's
favorite for over a year now. Peanut's reign has
lasted longer than any before, and possibly longer
than any to come. Peanut sleeps in Molly's arms.
Peanut speaks in a special baby voice that Molly
has given him. It is a voice sweet enough to bring
out the maternal instinct in an All-star
Wrestler.
Molly is peanut's adopted mother. She insists
that I watch Peanut carefully for her while she is
at school. When she spends the night at a friend's
house, she will call home to make sure Peanut
doesn't miss her too much. She becomes panicked
when she thinks Peanut may be feeling
neglected.
Her ability to take care of Peanut seems to be a
kind of test to see if she will be a good mother
when she grows up. Peanut came with us on a
vacation in southern California. I knew it was a
bad idea to take Peanut into the convenience store
beside the freeway near San Luis Obispo. But Molly
was excited to let Peanut pick out her treat for
her. We returned to the car with ice cream in hand.
It wasn't until we home and unpacking that we
realized we were missing something.
I watched all the joy that had accumulated over
the vacation vanish from the face of my child the
instant she identified when she had last seen
Peanut. Her body slumped into my arms as she
whimpered, "Peanut's still sitting on the ice cream
cooler. I forgot him!"
Molly was racked with grief. She felt like she
had failed him. First, she wanted to drive back and
get him. Then she wanted to know what would happen
to him if someone found him. Would he be given to
another kid? Would he be thrown in the trash? After
an hour of calls to San Luis Obispo we tracked down
the store, but no one there could find a stuffed
monkey. Peanut was gone.
Unlike other losses, Molly did not recover after
a good cry and a little time. Every night for the
past week she is reminded of Peanut at bedtime, and
she becomes sad. She reminds me of when I got
dumped by my girlfriend in high school. I walked
around in a daze. I couldn't study. I sold all my
records, because they all extolled the virtues of
romantic love. Life sucked.
Is it a good thing to be so attached to
something? The Buddhist's might say no. These
attachments are the source of our suffering. But
Molly didn't decide to become attached to Peanut.
She didn't weigh the pros and cons. Peanut and she
just bonded. Will she guard her heart more
carefully after this? When she losses her first
love, will some of her tears be also for
Peanut?
If you find a stuffed animal somewhere, like in
a store, or a waiting room. And if it looks like
maybe a child has mistakenly left him or her
there... could you turn it in to the lost and
found? And if no one claims it, could you give it
to a kid that will take care of it? I know that
there are more practical things to worry about. But
at our house, right now, this is really
important.
© 2007, Tim
Hartnett
Other Father Issues,
Books
* * *
Your children need your presence more than your
presents. - Jesse Jackson
Tim
Hartnett, Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage and Family
Therapist in private practice in Santa Cruz, CA. He
specializes in Individual Counseling, Couples
Therapy, and Divorce Mediation. He can be reached
at 831.464.2922 or through his website:
www.TimHartnett.com
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