The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: STUFFED ANIMAL

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are straws, studio, stuffed animal, summer job, tattoos, telephone, tennis court, test, theater.

STUFFED ANIMAL

wee me with birthday stash

I've had lots of stuffed animals over my life. (Pretty much all my birthday pictures include books and stuffed animals!) Some were made for my by my grandmother. Others were the store-bought variety. I remember an ultra-soft plush white polar bear, a little lamb with a black face. My sister Lynn, who is a Leo, had a fuzzy yellow lion. In recent years my middle son forgot my birthday when he was probably 16, and then he surprised me with a pink stuffed dog he got from the grocery store where he worked at the time. The dog wasn't anything like what I'd choose for myself, and I didn't really have a place for a stuffed toy that size, but of course I loved it!

last shot of the stuffed dog

It lived a long and happy life until recently, when puppy Rosie took a shine to it. The damage was done before I could rescue the stuffed dog, and the real dog liked it so much, that I just let her enjoy it. This is more in keeping with my current more minimalist, in-the-moment approach to living... recent experiences like downsizing and losing my father (who was quite the collector) are helping teach me not to be so attached to THINGS. Even the son who gave me the stuffed dog was understanding when I showed him the picture of the now-destroyed stuffed dog. (He also said he'd let Santa know. :) And it was also that son who told me recently when I said after he'd gone, “I just wish I'd taken a picture of you” that I shouldn't worry, because I have him in real life. Oh, the fear of loss... like I said, I'm learning!

(and this is why I couldn't resist
letting Rosie have her way
with the toy!)