Goodwill

I have given a lot of Colby's "stuff" to the Goodwill. The most recent load I took over the day before it began to rain here in Nashville. The day before the big flood began. This particular Goodwill was underwater for much of the flood and yesterday when I drove by workers were pulling bins of merchandise out to the sidewalk to dry out. Not much looks salvageable.

I see a big wire bin of stuffed animals and my heart leaps into my throat. One of the boxes I just dropped off had a number of Colby's hats and stuffed animals in it. Not his most favorite "stuffies," those I will always keep, but many stuffed toys he played with and loved greatly. Nine months after Colby passed I was ready for another child to love those toys. I was not ready to see them covered in mud and slime. But I had to know if these damaged toys had once belonged to my son.

I started digging through the bin. I know the Goodwill frequently redistributes donations to other stores. I so hoped that was the case here. The workers looked at me from time to time, but they were busy salvaging what they could so they did not pay too much attention to me. And besides, I was probably not the only crazy person they'd seen that day. I took every stuffed toy out of that bin and each gesture of mine was more frantic than the last. Colby's beloved toys could not be here, water logged and destroyed. They just couldn't. And . . . they weren't.

When I realized that I put the toys carefully back in the bin and sat down on the curb and cried with relief. I was not sure why the safety of his toys was so important to me. I had voluntarily given them away. Wanted to give them away. But, I realized, I did not want them thrown away. I wanted the love Colby had shown those animals to live on in the shining eyes of another child. And maybe they still will.

My hope is that the toys were moved to another store before the flood. That they are safe and dry. Hopefully most are already in the arms of another little boy or girl. I'd like to believe that--have to believe it. For the alternative, for me, is unthinkable.