Sometimes I wonder where all the lost things go…like the Dead Letter Office, is there a place in between tears for misplaced wedding rings and beloved toys?

After a particularly successful Show and Tell in elementary school, I left my beloved Miss Baker on the playground. All the way from the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Miss Baker was both an historical figure (one of the first animals launched into space) and best friend to me. When I hurried back to the bench where I left her, it stared at me cold and empty. Stolen, perhaps? In my mind, she was priceless–who wouldn’t want her? But she was mine. I cried a thousand tears for her.

For some reason I can’t remember, I told this story to Chloe when she was four. Being an aficionado of monkeys herself, she immediately burst into tears, heartbroken over my childhood loss. Every so often, she would bring it up in conversation, this injustice that simmered in her heart whenever we talked of beloved things.

After my work schedule tripled this month, leaving Chloe with pools for eyes every time I stepped out the door, that old memory kindled in her heart, and when I came home from work one dark morning in the hours of zzzzzz, she had completed a gift for me.

A brand new Miss Baker, sewn from her sweet fingers and the depths of her heart.
I don’t know where Miss Baker went that day on the playground, but she has come back to me in a much more precious way than she did the first time.