i loved stuffed animals and they were my friends. i got them mostly at easter or maybe birthdays. i remember my first big attachment which was a stuffed animal made of terry cloth. i picked all of the little loops off of it, like plucking a chicken. it went away at some point, no doubt disposed of by my mother, who apparently had no attachment to them or any way to understand their importance to me.
my all time favorite one was the calico cat that my grandmother made for me from a pattern. there was the blue gingham dog, which she made for my brother, and the red calico cat that she made for me. these were the animals from the famous poem about the gingham dog and the calico cat ("side by side at the table sat...") the year she gave it to me she typed up the poem on a piece of cloth and my uncle raymond framed it for her to give to me. it hung in most of the rooms i lived in until i was way into my adulthood. i think now it is in the cedar chest, along with the gingham dog and the calico cat stuffed animals, all wrapped in plastic to preserve them from their deterioration.
i took the cat everywhere when i went out overnight, but mostly to her house, as i rarely spent the night with any other relatives. mamama was always sewing the cat back together, as the material was flimsy and the tail curled in such as way that it got ripped in the curve. the cat was two sided, one side perfect, and the other side showing patches from the fight between the gingham dog and the calico cat.
my uncle jack gave me a lovely white cat that had real fur of some type, probably rabbit. it was made of leather and the cat was laying down like a cat would. it wasn't two dimensional like the calico cat. there were assorted easter rabbits and other stuffed things. whenever we had bad thunderstorms, i would gather them in my bed with me for protection. i would prepare for having to leave the house if it caught on fire, and i had all the animals with me. at one point i had five or six. what i remember most, however, is my mother coming in at night to check on me and her ripping them out of the bed and throwing them on the floor, not allowing me to have them. i never understood that. what was the point? she continued that tradition even up to when i was in high school. i wonder now how she could have done that to me, and why she would have done it. what harm was there to have stuffed animals in a bed with a little girl?
on the top shelf of my closet is a collection of some stuffed animals from my adulthood and austin's childhood, including pastel, the bunny given to him by aunt grace. i have elephants that my grandmother knitted over old plastic legg's eggs and a sock monkey that warnie gave me when i was in college. the beautiful white cat is also on that shelf along with a moose that bebo's mother gave him and i inheirited and some camels. i like looking at them holding down the shelf while i grab clothes on hangers below their shelf. one thing is for sure: they don't move unless a cat takes them out. and one other thing is for sure: there will be no mom throwing them out.
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