“THE SAFEST PLACE EVER”
One Christmas I received this little toy kitten from Santa Claus because he knew I loved animals! I was always asking my parents for a horse or puppy or kitten it really didn’t matter what it was as long as it was an animal. Well this little toy was one of my favorites and I played very carefully with it and tried to keep it in the “safest place ever.” I was fascinated by the way it could move it’s feet and the bright red ball could spin in its paws. It’s funny how we place such importance on particular items during our growing up years. This little toy was not expensive, it didn’t have all the bells & whistles that other toys had. Just a plain little plastic kitten that really couldn’t have cost more than 25 cents. As the years passed and my collection of special possessions grew I kept them along with the kitten in the “safest place ever.”
Last weekend my sister Angie & I went to visit Dad and help him clean up the house and find a few things he had been looking for. We spent hours going through old photos and papers and then the rest of my tribe showed up. Dad decided it was time for him to honor our son Chasin with dad’s military ribbons and some memorabilia from his war days. Dad and Chasin wandered off but soon returned with an old wooden drawer filled with special things that my Father had collected in his younger years. Slowly they lifted items out of the drawer and Dad would tell another story with every piece. Our two-year-old granddaughter Sydnie decided to get in the middle of all this commotion. The first thing she pulled from the drawer was my little kitten that I had long ago thought was most likely lost forever. At that very moment Angie shouted out “Sydnie, you found my kitten!” Quietly I sat on the sofa as Angie “remembered when” and I saw a great big smile shine across her beautiful face! I couldn’t possibly say a word but as she went on with her story of the kitten, I went away to a place so very far away, the “safest place ever”. The home I grew up in, my Parents arms, the field behind our house, my Grandparents house, the old barn, sitting on my horse, playing with my Sister, my childhood.
That’s right the “safest place ever” I think was my childhood, you remember, the time when your tummy was always hungry and Mom’s cookin’ was always the best. When Dad was the strongest man on the planet and could fix anything that broke! When Grandpa would swoop you up in his arms and carry you inside and say to Grandma “Look who I’ve got!”. When I laid in the field with the high grass swaying in the wind and dreamed my dreams, the old barn that smelled of hay and grain, riding my horse into the big woods and racing across the fields, playing with my Sister who was always filling me up with smiles & giggles!
Suddenly I heard Angie say “Cha’” and I was brought back to the present, “that was your toy kitten wasn’t it and I smiled and said “yes it was one of my favorite toys”, and I showed my Granddaughter how it could go backward & forward. She played with it for awhile but soon was off with another adventure. Angie told me to take the kitten home with me and I did. Feeling as though it filled me with the feeling of “the safest place ever”,
Today I’m mailing the little toy kitten to my sister Angie, because it put a great big smile on that beautiful face of hers and I realize that it wasn’t the kitten that I missed so much, it was the “safest place ever” playing with my sister Angie.
Sharing the Journey
Cha'