Last weekend, Anna and I were flying home from visiting my mom. It was late in the evening, we'd had two flights already, and we still had a two-hour car ride home to look forward to. It was a long day for sure. We waited at the baggage carousel. Anna insisted on getting her own suitcase and wandered to the other side. Eventually we both got our bags and took all of our stuff over to some chairs to wait for Mama Heidi to pick us up.
And then panic struck. "Mom, my bag is gone!" Anna exclaimed. "What do you mean, gone? It was right here....wasn't it?" I couldn't remember. My mind was fuzzy and I was tired. I figured it had to be around the area somewhere. So we started searching and turned up empty-handed. As we talked, Anna realized she may have left her backpack on the floor. She thinks she put it down when she went to grab her suitcase from the carousel. Sure enough, we had two suitcases but only one backpack.
I struggled to remember what was in it. Thankfully, there was no money. There were no electronics. But unfortunately, what Anna lost was something far more precious to her - some of her snuggly friends. There was Felix the Fox, who had been going to school in Anna's backpack since we got him on vacation last summer. There was Todd the Otter, a special friend from grandma from when we visited real river otters at the living museum. There was Chester Cheetah, Pugsly and Chip (puppies she'd just gotten for Valentine's Day), Prickles the Hedgehog and Shelly the Turtle, from Anna's baby days. The one silver lining is that Anna's all-time favorite best stuffed friend, Beary, was still with us. Whew. I can't imagine what would've happened if he'd been in the bag.
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| Beary, Anna's best buddy |
