Emotional Attachement: The Stuffed Animal

I wanted to talk a little bit about emotional attachment to material items.  If any of you know me well, you'd know that I'm a "tosser" of things.  I hate keeping items that serve no purpose - it drives me completely crazy.  So the very idea that I would keep an item longer that 10 years that serves no tangible purpose is almost unfathomable. 

However, I have managed to keep one item for as long as I've been alive.  I'll give my parents credit for always keeping this little guy in tip top shape when I was a wee lad.  But after discovering where it came from, I knew I always wanted to keep it.

 

I never fully knew where my little stuffed dog came from until I was in middle school.  When I was a small child I always thought that when you were born the stuffed animal fairy came to you house and dropped off a bunch of various animals for you to play with - seems legit, right???.  It never dawned on me that someone actually gave that to you.

At some family gathering my grandmother ended up in my bedroom with me.  She sat down on my bed and picked up this ratty old stuffed dog, she smiled, and she asked me who I got it from.  I said "I don't know, but I know there's a photo of me when I was born with this dog, so I wanted to keep it".  She chuckled and replied "Well, you were probably too young to remember but I gave that to you when you were first born in the hospital". 

That's the moment I decided to keep this little doggy forever.  My grandmother is no longer living, but I think about her everyday.  Now this little stuffed dog has a place of pride in my guest room on a ledge.  Each time I look at it, it makes me feel good and reminds me of her.  I know it may be juvenile to keep a stuffed dog, but that's my prerogative.  This little furry friend has seen some stuff, no seriously - he's been in my life for 33 years!  

Do any of you have an emotional attachment to items like this?  Let me know in the comments if you care to share

Thanks for reading!