Proxy

In my childhood, my proxy was a stuffed animal to which was given the authority to act on my behalf. For the first few years of life, my proxy and constant companion was a stuffed cotton dog. He was so love-worn that in intervention, he was sewn and recovered in blue linen by my grandmother, losing his ears and tail in the process. 

 

It was around this time it was decided that I had become too attached, so he was taken and hidden away from me. My mom recounts my distress... my telling her,

“I can hear him crying.”

 

But she didn’t budge.

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I still have dark gray memories of this loss.