In the first installment of the Toy Story series, Woody, thinking he’s been left behind, falls to the ground and decries his new, depressing status: “I’m a lost toy!”
Surely there can be many things more terrifying than being lost. One of our great childhood fears is getting lost, being separated from our parents and unable to find them. It’s the stuff of every child’s nightmares, and in a modified way, the plot of great books of the past.
Losing something dear to us is like losing a part of us.
Today, before Mass, somewhere between getting out of the car and walking out of the restroom, L lost her Madeline doll. “She may be teeny tiny, diminutive, petite.” L’s Madeline doll was all those things, and she even had a scar from having her appendectomy.
I walked back to the car, looking for the doll that I thought surely would be easy to find. No such luck. K and L went back to the restroom. No doll. After Mass, I talked to the ushers. Sadly, there’s no lost and found bin anymore, but they informed me that people often leave lost items on the tables outside the sanctuary. No Madeline. We checked the bathroom once more and looked carefully as we went back to the car.
No luck; no Madeline.
Fortunately, L was not terribly attached to the dolls, so a few tears and it was all fine.
But I’m genuinely curious about what happened to that doll. Did someone take it? If so, why? Isn’t it obviously a lost toy? If someone found it in the parking lot, isn’t it a reasonable assumption that the owner will return to look for it? In short, who would simply take a toy when it’s obvious where the owner is? Who would take a doll from a church parking lot?
Perhaps it will show up next week. There’s always that hope — the idealism that led me to be a teacher still says, “Someone will play with it for a week, then return it.”