A Thousand More Wishes...

There was great jubilation and singing one morning this week at our house. The lost had been found, the prodigal had returned home!

My daughter came bounding down the stairs early one morning, shouting, “Mama! I found Bunna!”

This was indeed cause for great celebration! Bunna is one of those little baby blanket things with a head attached. Bunna started out as a fluffy pink bunny/blanket but has been reduced, or perhaps elevated, to a rather dull, flat, greyish pink, having been loved and hugged for seven full years. My daughter received this as a Christmas gift after being alive for less than 3 months and it has been her favorite ever since. This is the toy whose periodic absence has made bedtime a tearful, stressful event over the years.

At the tail end of summer, the last day we saw Bunna, we had a family over for a campfire. My daughter was thrilled to be interacting with the benevolent teenage girls who were over. She was stuffing Bunna in their hoods and carting her around when they were playing bocce and hide-and-go-seek in the dark.

That night at bedtime, we discovered that Bunna was not to be found. It was late and my daughter was exhausted so we were able to postpone the full scale hunt until the next day. We turned her room upside down. We looked in every nook and cranny we could think of in the house. We searched outside in the trees, around the firepit, in the shop and shed and cat house. Bunna was nowhere. As a last resort, I called our visitors to see if Bunna went home in one of their hoods. She did not.

Hope began to wane of ever finding Bunna. This was a sad thing – both for my daughter and for me. Bunna was the token from my daughter's childhood that I had planned on saving if she didn't.

Two months went by with no sign of Bunna despite periodic checks of places we might have missed.

And then one day this week, she was back in bed when my daughter awoke, like she had never been missing!

I knew nothing about this. I thought initially that perhaps Bunna had been tucked inside the edge of the bedsheet like a forlorn sock and had finally worked herself out. I dismissed that thought right away, because I had washed her sheets in the last two months. Hadn't I? I had a brief moment of panic over the lack of a clear, specific memory of doing the laundry. I suggested maybe Dad knew something about Bunna's surprise reappearance. My daughter dutifully went and asked.

“Dad said he didn't know but said maybe she was just away on a vacation and came back!” she reported moments later. “Maybe Bunna is magic!”

Magical, indeed!

Later that evening, my husband told me where he had accidentally found Bunna.

“Then why did you tell her you didn't know anything about it?” I asked, perhaps slightly accusingly.

I am a stickler for proper grammar and honesty. I like to think that time and maturity have sanded away a few of the rougher edges, but my penchant for truth-telling has sometimes in the past made me blunt, maybe rude, probably less than kind. It's taking me awhile to accept that not all truth needs to be disclosed, at least not immediately.

My husband, on the other hand, is more open to unanswered questions, mystery and magic. And that's what he gave my daughter that morning.

The next morning, perhaps feeling reprimanded by my question, he did tell my daughter that he had in fact found Bunna in the house, but he wouldn't tell her where. This turned out to be upsetting to her and I had to bite my tongue to not ask, “Now why did you go and tell her the truth?”

It got me thinking about many of life's big unanswered questions. So often, we want to know why? where? when? how? why me? why not me? And the answers are elusive.

The magical Bunna reminded me of a truth I know but often forget.

Some of life's mysteries are there to keep fresh the miracle and magic of just being alive, to keep us looking and searching, hoping. Some of those mysteries are there to remind us to appreciate what we have while we have it – nothing lasts forever. And some of life's mysteries and unanswered questions remain mysteries to protect us from a truth that would make our pain unbearable. So that even mysteries are something to be thankful for.

My daughter had her 7^th birthday last Sunday. She told me she had seen a shooting star out her window when she woke up. I asked her if she made a wish. She said she had. I asked her what it was, despite knowing that if you tell your wish, it won't come true. But she told me anyway.

“I wished for a thousand more wishes....” Then she whispered enigmatically, with a wink of childhood magic, “...and they're all the same!” 

 

Above all else, guard your heart,

for it is the wellspring of life.

Proverbs 4:23