pooh, resolved

It’s been almost a month now since Pooh was lost. He hasn’t been found. We all had a brief moment of hope last week when my sister’s Bassett Hound was...blocked...but it turned out that he’d just eaten an avocado pit she didn’t dispose of quickly enough when she was making guacamole. For his part, Andrew was mostly doing okay with the whole situation; he asked for Pooh when he was upset, and there were a couple of times he woke up at night crying for him. For our parts, Joe and I were still just sick over it all.

One morning a couple of weeks ago, Joe called me at work. “Go to eBay,” he told me. I did, and then he said, “Okay, now search for ‘classic Pooh plush’ and go to page seven of the hits.” I knew immediately what he’d found, and my heart was literally pounding as I paged through the results.

And there it was: another Pooh. Our Pooh. I’d thought it was irreplaceable, but there it was in an eBay store called, appropriately enough, Lost Loves Toy Chest. Pooh came with a hefty price tag of $25.00, but there was no question in my mind that it was worth the money. I bought it.

The replacement Pooh arrived last week. Joe and I were initially going to wait until Christmas to put it in Andrew’s stocking, but we were just too excited. We couldn’t wait to see his reaction. I wasn’t sure how he’d respond, since the new Pooh is much fluffier and cleaner than the former one, but as soon as he saw it, his eyes actually lit up. I know that’s just an expression that people use, but I literally saw a light come into his eyes.

He immediately grabbed Pooh with both hands and brought him up to the corner of his mouth in an all-too-familiar gesture. “Pooh,” he breathed. “Pooh, you’re back. I missed you so much.” It was truly one of the most beautiful moments I’ve witnessed in my life. The reunion of my son with his best friend. It brought me to tears. I looked at Joe, and I swear there were tears in his eyes too.

We told him that Pooh had a really good bath, which was why he was so fluffy and clean, and he seemed to accept this explanation. And just like that, Pooh came back into our lives. Andrew treats him so gently now, and keeps him so close, and is constantly saying things to him like, “I won’t lose you again” and “I’m so glad you’re back.” It is seriously the sweetest thing.

Of course, it’s not quite the same to me. The new Pooh isn’t the Pooh Andrew had when he was three months and nine months and eighteen months and two years old. It makes me a little bit sad that that Pooh is still gone (maybe for good). But the important thing is that there’s no difference to Andrew. He has Pooh back. Pooh is home, right where he belongs.