Piggy

When I was young I had my share of some unfortunate medical issues. For about a year of my childhood I was in and out of surgery, frequenting physical therapy, taking medication that is literally no longer prescribed to children (Valium; turns out it has the opposite effect on kids. Thanks, mom and dad for staying up all night with me while I ran up and down stairs), sitting out on recess and gym class, watching out the window while my siblings jumped on the trampoline (dramatic, I know), and crying because I had a half-body cast on two separate occasions (4th graders are mean).

My big brother, Dru bought me a stuffed animal pig a few Christmas' before. I named him Piggy, as I was always the clever one. Piggy, like many stuffed animals for children, became my crutch. I loved him so much. When the year of my hellish medical history arrived, Piggy was the most important thing to me. He  loved all of the same things I did, he was always awake when I was, and even loved watching Star Wars as much AND as frequently as I did. Some nights I would cry and cry because everything hurt so bad and Piggy would cry too.

Looking back, I see how kids become so attached to an inanimate object. Piggy was a security and safety that I just couldn't duplicate. Tonight I was holding Robbie while he fell asleep. He has been struggling most of his life and has had a few weeks recently where it just feels like things are never getting better. He will have a procedure done this upcoming week and be kept in the hospital again. I thought about the surgeries that I had to have when I was young. My mom always brought Piggy to the hospital, and in my 9-year-old brain it felt like since he was there, I'd be okay. I put Robbie down in his crib and rummaged around in his box of toys and animals. At the bottom was Piggy, whom I brought all the way to Texas when I moved, in the hopes that if I had a baby, he would love him too. I put the old, worn animal in the crib to watch over my sweet baby and realized why he was so important to me. Piggy did everything with me. Ate breakfast, watched TV, played, told stories, and every night when I knelt down to pray, Piggy prayed with me. I associate him with innocence, life and surviving painful, hard times. When I think about it, I know that Robbie will have hard times to come, but he will get through them and will come out the other side having had opportunities to grow and be strengthened that were very much individualized for him. Just like we all do. I also know that I won't always be the one who can give him what he needs but he will find comfort in the joys that life has to offer. Maybe even in something as simple as a stuffed animal pig.