Mickey, Curious George, and Blue
Posted on January 19, 2015 on blog
I was still managing the small hotel in Sosua when I wrote this. I have since moved on. But not from the sentiments.
We always have the most lovely guests. And one of the most wonderful things about this funny, quirky little place is the number of guests who return again and again.
One such family is an American couple with four children, three lovely, smart girls and an adorable, quick-as-silver little boy. They live in the DR and do good deeds. All six of them. They wear their deep (Christian) faith as a tool, not a weapon, and they are perhaps the kindest people I have ever met in my entire life.
But even the most devoted good-deed-doers need a break from time to time, and when that time comes, this family comes to Fawlty Towers South for a few days of fun and sun. We were delighted to welcome them over Christmas, and it was a great visit all around.
However, when I was doing the room walk-through after they left, I discovered that the little boy had left little stuffed Mickey Mouse and Curious George behind. They seemed to be very well loved, and it didn’t seem to me that they’d been left intentionally.
So I wrote a quick note to the mom and offered to send them. Then again, I don’t know what I was thinking as there is no postal service. Maybe in the Capital or Santiago, but not here, and definitely not in the campo where they live. Every so often I have a First World Lapse like that…..
She said to hang onto them and they’d get them the next time they come through the North Coast, as the baby hadn’t mentioned them and didn’t seem to notice.
Well, of course: delayed reaction and the poor child was sobbing to a teacher about the loss of his beloved comfort guys, so Mom promised him that Mickey and George are with Meems and she is keeping them safe until the family can come and collect them. I hope he is hanging on to the thread of that hope.
I’m an old hand at this, having called hotels from Montauk to Baltimore to track down Blue, the much-beloved blanket of Beloved Son, who was left behind on several occasions. The blanket, not the Son.
Blue was a gift from my youngest sister, a navy blue fleece blanket with a soft satin border, about 45″x 36″ in measurement, and soft as rain dripping from willow trees, just like my sister. Blue was meant to be a nursing blanket for me. Somehow he got co-opted by Beloved Son, and they are still together. Blue is greatly enjoying college life, thankyewverramuch. (Say it like Elvis)
Blue has seen it all, from the Tooth Fairy to girlfriends. I can only hope that Blue gets washed from time to time, because back in the days of childhood, he got pretty ripe, and I had to pry him away from Beloved Son as he slept, wash and dry him, and return him to my slumbering child, who was also known to get pretty ripe. I wish I could have washed and dried Beloved Son in his slumber, but there are pesky Child Protection Services about that. We were always pretty anthropomorphic about Blue, too, and he was always a “he,” never an “it.”
I think that at that age (three-ish) they’re almost, but not quite, ready to let go of the comfort object, because in theory they’ve learned to comfort themselves. It’s hard to let go. I know there are some schools of parental thought that insist on doing a weaning. In theory, the tears and panic are over in a couple of weeks, and the child will have achieved a new level of maturity and independence and the parents have made their point.
I am of a different school of parental thought, and always figured he’d give up the object when he was ready. I never wanted to exert parental authority when I thought that my child could figure it out for himself. My parental goal (if I ever really even consciously thought of it) was to raise a child capable of making his own decisions and being in touch with his own feelings. Never too early to start that.
In the larger picture, I wonder how many of us—as adults—secretly wish we still had a Mickey, or a Curious George, or a Blue.
If we’re lucky, I guess that’s what our relationships/partnerships do.
If we’re not lucky (and who is?), I guess that’s what adult beverages and food and any number of other activities or substances are for.
Or if we’re extremely unlucky or extraordinarily brave, I guess we do without emotional comfort.
But you can’t do it forever. Because either you go crazy with longing or you stop feeling. Having done both, I can attest that one is just as painful as the other.
Loss is one of the most horrible of the four-letter words. And while we may smile indulgently at the tears of a toddler at the loss of Mickey or George or Blue, his loss is just as real, just as devastating, and just as painful as life’s later losses.
We spend so much of our time teaching our children, but I think that what we really need to do sometimes is to step back and learn from them. We can learn about devotion, and joy, and love, and we can also learn about mourning, and sadness, and loss.
Right now I’m reading Marilynne Robinson’s extraordinary “Gilead” trilogy. In the second book, “Home,” she writes this incredible sentence:
“Why did I ever expect to keep anything? That isn’t how life is.”
So hang on to Mickey and George and Blue as long as you can, in any way, shape, or form. Because if the only comfort is Southern, you may want to look at it again.