The Polka Dotted Pillow

The tears came easily. I couldn’t figure out what moment in time created the heartbreak I could see in her big blue water filled eyes. She stood there clutching the polka dotted pillow with white gripped knuckles.

With an impatient sigh, I muttered, “Maddie, it’s just a pillow, we are getting a new couch and it’s going to the curb with all the rest.”

“But. Hailey,” came the small reply.

The pillow started on the new couch.  It ended up attached to a furry feline wherever it traveled. We never could figure out why. But wherever the pillow went, so did she. It could have been the smooshy almost flattened cush. It could have been the soft worn down sheen. It could have been that it smelled like her person. But like clockwork, if you wondered where Hailey was, just check the polka dotted pillow.

It had been months since that moment in time and the heartbreak was as fresh in her eyes as if it had been yesterday.  Her Hailey. Her smooshy faced, if I fits I sits, best friend. Whose pictures were lovingly attached to a since worn out copy of Cat Heaven by Cynthia Rylant.

Her fuzzy self was firmly implanted in Maddie’s heart and in Maddie’s mind, to that polka dotted pillow.

I gently placed my hands on either side of my daughter’s face, wiping away the wetness as it flowed from her eyes, while blinking it out of my own.

“Of course we keep the pillow, sweetie. I know Hailey wouldn’t have it any other way.”