Missed Steps

I’ve heard some people who move from creeping straight to walking have to go back and learn to crawl sometimes, an essential step missed and needed. Maybe that’s what’s going on with me. Not the crawling – I did that part of it. But…

Okay. I set out to tell you, and I will. Mother used to claim I always wanted a fire truck instead of a doll. I don’t think that’s the entire truth. I expect the fire truck was a passing fancy. But the disgust with dolls? Yep. That one lasted for decades. When necessary to mess with dolls, I designed and made clothes for them. Or, in collaboration with my sister and the next-door-neighbors’ granddaughter/babysittee when necessary for dolls to be involved, I played the hunter/gatherer role while they nested in a world of my imagination’s creation. I never liked dolls.

Until…

Last Saturday I heard a speaker who told of reestablishing contact with her innocent childself by loving on a stuffed toy until she felt, rubbing his paw, as though her foot were being caressed. Yeah. Sure. Maybe for someone else…

That night, as the Big Book says, "suddenly the thought crossed my mind." I knew there were stuffed animals in the storage bedroom, wasn’t willing to venture in there. But wasn’t there something among my travel souvenirs? That’s how Bobbye came to bed with me. Before my critics chime in, I know he’s not a bobby but a beefeater. And I know how to spell the London cop bobby. Bobbye, though, is my spelling of a childhood name Mother called me at times – maybe the same times she called me the little boy among her flock of girls.

I missed some steps. And I’m catching up on them. And Bobbye and I can grieve together over water that passed under the bridge decades ago.