flipflop_diva

My life really started the day I was adopted.

I don’t remember much of my time before that — where I came from, how I got there, who made me. I just remember being in the big, cold place, lying on a hard surface, waiting for something to happen.

A lot of the others I was kept with would disappear, taken away in an instant. A large hand would reach out to grab them, and then that was it. They never came back. New ones would come in their place. Some of them looked like me. Some looked completely different. Four legs, two legs, no legs. Yellow, green, black.

Then one day it happened.

Two warm hands grabbed me by my arms, lifted me into the air, squeezed me against a soft chest. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I felt safe. I felt like I had a purpose.

We went to my new home that day, the first of many homes I would eventually live in. This one had a yellow bedroom, and I got to stay on the little bed, next to the baby with the pacifier and the koala bear who was missing an eye.

The girl who adopted me was nice. She dressed me every day in little dresses, and put hats over my ears to make sure I was never cold. She made sure I had food to eat and bottles to drink out of and books to read.

As I got older, and the girl got older, more people joined us. Dogs, cats, ponies. An elephant. Lots of people named Barbie.

But I was always the special one. I got to sleep in bed every night with the girl who adopted us, got to give her hugs while she slept and make sure she was safe.

It wasn’t always easy.

My fur, once so shiny and fluffy, became hard and ratty. Gum got stuck to my head. One of my paws got dunked in green paint, thanks to the girl’s little sister. A hole appeared in my chest and white stuff starting pouring out. The girl’s mom stitched me back up and sewed a little red heart over the wound.

“Now you can see her heart!” the little girl said as she cradled me in her arms after my surgery.

And then the girl got older.

I had heard stories, whispered around by the others, that sometimes when the people who adopted you got older, they forgot about you. You sit in a room alone and unloved, just waiting for something that will never come, until you are thrown out like trash.

That happened to some of the others. The girl’s mom would appear in the room with a box, and the girl would have to put some of us in there. Then the girl’s mom would take the box away, and we never saw those ones again.

She never came for me, never even looked my way, but I was still scared, worried that too was my fate. Especially for the months when the girl decided she was too old to sleep with anyone. I wasn’t allowed in her arms those nights, but I sat on the pillow on the other side of the bed and watched her.

Then one day the girl’s mom came into her room with lots and lots of boxes, so many more than before. “College,” I heard the girl’s mom say, and I trembled in fear with what that could mean.

The girl filled box after box with stuff from her room, and then she looked at me.

“No!” I tried to cry, but she didn’t hear me. She picked me up, smoothed a hand over my head, kissed my nose and tucked me carefully in the box.

I lay in the dark in that box for a very long time, my heart no longer beating. My purpose was done. My life was over.

But I was wrong. The box was opened days later and I looked at my new surroundings. A much smaller room and a much smaller bed.

The girl was there. She lifted me out, sat me on the bed, and that night, she took me in her arms.

I’ve moved a lot since then. To grad school, to apartments and finally to the house we live in now, with the girl’s husband and dog and cats.

I don’t get to sleep in the bed anymore, but I sit in a place of honor in the guest room, still wearing my favorite dress. The girl sometimes stops to pick me up, to kiss my nose.

I know she loves me. I love her too. The little red heart on my chest is proof of that.

Thank you for reading! This was the story of Katie. I picked her out when I was 3, and I still have her today. This was written for