Two years ago I wrote a column about my eldest’s favourite toy, a little lion stuffy, conveniently named Lion. Lion used to be bright yellow but is now closer to a light brown colour.
I bet all the parents reading know why.
I didn’t know how much that lion meant to my husband and I until my son lost him. When I wrote about this occurrence, this was not the first time my son had lost him, but it was the first time this little stuffy didn’t show up in any of my then three-year-old son’s typical hiding spots: in the cupboards of his toy kitchen, in the trunk of his toy trucks, or in the blanket fort that had been standing for several months in our family room.
After an emotional search, of which many tears were shed but none came from my son, I found the toy in the hidden cupholder compartment in the back seat of my car.
That was part one, but this is part two.
As some of our readers out there might remember, I have two children, both with the same fondness for one specific stuffed animal who sometimes gets lost.
My daughter, Bella’s particularly special toy is a little white unicorn, with the nickname Corny. Corny is the twin to my son’s toy Lion, made by the same brand. This was done on purpose.
When I was pregnant with my daughter, I read many articles about how to introduce siblings to one another. One article advised having the older sibling buy the younger sibling a present to give to the baby when they meet in the hospital. To make things fair, I secretly bought a toy for my then unborn daughter to give to her older brother once she was Earthside.
When Lucas and I went shopping, I let him take charge in picking out the perfect gift for his sister. It was his idea to buy his baby sister a stuffy just as special as his lion. So we hit up the same store where I knew Lion had been purchased, despite the fact that the logo on his tag had disappeared from many spins in the washing machine. And low and behold we found Corny. Although her nickname was still unknown to us – we didn’t learn about it until my daughter was roughly two years old.
Just like Lion, Corny has become a full-fledged member of our family, appearing at every dinner time, family movie or game night, every outing, and even overseas vacations.
Earlier this year, my husband, mother, and children vacationed in Spain, and as you might guess the stuffed animals were in tow. We made it through the airports unscathed, but trouble arose on our fifth day in Spain.
It was on this day that we made the long drive from Valencia to Peniscola Castle (also known as Meereen for any Game Of Thrones fans). It was a perfect day, roughly 25 degrees, clear blue sky, a gentle ocean breeze swaying the palm trees while we enjoyed a seafood paella and sangria lunch.
We spent the entire day exploring the ancient castle ruins set atop a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean Ocean.
By the end of the day, everyone was tired from a full day of activity out of the hotel room, and as we settled into a rental car and prepared for the several hours’ drive back to our temporary home, I gathered the essentials my kids would need to hopefully sleep in the car. That is when I discovered that Corny was missing.
I searched the diaper bag three times while my mom looked in every nook and cranny of the car, and my husband – being the genius that he is – looked through every photo he had taken that day while we were exploring.
He found photographic evidence that Corny had been left behind, atop a mountain, in a castle far far away. To make things worse, that castle had a closing time that was less than ten minutes away.
Now because my husband and I are hobby runners, we knew, based on the data from our smart watches, that the lost Corny was roughly 0.25 mile, with 235 feet of elevation, away from where we parked.
So we set off running, leaving my kids with my mom.
Just like two years prior, when we lost Lion, I began to worry about not finding this beloved toy. My first thought was that Bella has likely slept snuggling Corny every night since she was born. Good luck to us trying to get her to sleep in the car, let alone a strange bed in a hotel room without her trusted companion.
We continued to run the most important race we ever had and ever would. And that is saying a lot because last October my husband ran his bucket list race – The Abbott World Major Bank of America Chicago Marathon.
For any runners out there interested, we got to the summit in about eight minutes.
When we finally reached the peak, we found that the box office where we had purchased our entry tickets had already closed and locked its doors. We knocked desperately on the door, only to find a single staff person left inside.
Seeing the dread on our faces, she opened the door.
Now because we were out of breath and only partially versed in the Spanish language, we showed the last known photo we had of Corny and Bella, inside the castle.
Now the dread was on that staff person’s face as she asked us if our daughter was missing.
Because we didn’t know how to say unicorn in Spanish, we simply zoomed in on the toy.
Thankfully she understood and knew where Corny was – in the lost and found.
I hugged that unicorn so tight when she presented her to us, and I’m not ashamed to say I cried.
We proudly carried that stuffy back to our car, where I presented Unicorn to Bella, still sitting in her car seat. She squealed “Corny” and hugged her little friend as tightly as I had. She was none the wiser to her parents’ failed race against time, only to get lucky by meeting a kindhearted stranger who was willing to help us.
I ended my previous column about the lost lion cub by saying his disappearance led me to realize that I would be the one who keeps my kid’s toys in a safe place when they grow up and think stuffed animals aren’t cool anymore.
The mystery of the lost unicorn only reaffirmed my feelings.
I know that I will dig this Lion and Unicorn out when I am a grandmother, while my kids complain that the toy is too dirty for their babies to play with. I will tell them it’s their fault, those toys are dirty because they took them everywhere. For every long drive in the backseat of my old Honda Civic, and all the way up the tallest tower of the castle on the highest mountain in Spain, and home again after.
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Kelsey Bent is a Local Journalism Initiative Reporter with Midwestern Newspapers. Comments or feedback can be sent to kbent@midwesternnewpapers.com.
