Remix: Toy Story

What's your "toy story"?

Spring has me in a nostalgic mood, so I thought it would be interesting to give a fresh perspective on some old posts.

Today, I’m revisiting “Toy Story” from way back in November of 2022. I’ve reprinted the essay here and added some footnotes and updates. If you’ve been here a while, I hope you’ll enjoy this refresh; if you’re new, I hope to acquaint you with a bit of my backstory.

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For context:

This was published a few days after the third anniversary of my son’s death and a few months before our now two-year-old would be born. We’d submitted our plans to remodel our home, but were still almost a year from breaking ground.

Hello Friends,

I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie Toy Story. Woody is Andy’s favorite toy, and he takes his job very seriously. He feels his sole purpose is to be there for his child in whatever way he needs, and that includes being packed in a box and left in the basement.

I think about Woody when I look at the bins in the garage marked “toys.”

Just before Aiden was diagnosed¹, we pulled out the Thomas the Train set. Owen and Peyton were long done playing with it, but Aiden had just hit the age where he was ready to roll Thomas along his track.

Owen helped lay down the track on our back patio, and Peyton pulled out all the trains, breathing life into the old hand-me-downs.

But then Aiden got sick, and a month or so later, while he was in the hospital, I packed up the train set, and no one has played with it since. I wonder if Thomas and the other trains were confused.²

I think about Woody when I see Aiden’s baby toys or books, but it hits me hardest when I look at his car seat.

His toys were there for fun and comfort, his car seat was supposed to keep him safe.

The car seat rode home empty with us when we left the hospital without Aiden. I wonder if the toys we had in the hospital told the car seat what happened. I wonder if they filled in the rest of the toys when we got home.³ Some of them still stand sentinel in my room, maybe now understanding they are here to comfort me.

Soon, I will reinstall the car seat in preparation for our little Zucchini (our pet name for the baby) coming in January.

I hope the car seat feels useful again in the same way Woody felt when Andy played with him. I assume it has the same anxiety I do about being responsible for the health and safety of a newborn. I hope, like me, the fear won’t get in the way of the joy and happiness this new baby will bring.

And now…

This essay is 359 words, but it feels bigger… Like every line could be its own paragraph.

I think when a child dies, their things are so far from outliving their usefulness, it seems wrong to keep them boxed up, but passing down anything that gives you the excuse to remember is painful.

I used to have Aiden’s favorite toys and books displayed separately on Tatum’s shelves like a shrine, but now that she's old enough to play with them, everything is all mixed together. I thought this kind of “moving forward” would be destabilizing, but instead it feels like a sliver of the natural order of things has been restored.

Recently, Tatum outgrew Aiden’s car seat. It sits in the garage with a few new scratches and yogurt stains. I hope it feels satisfied with a job well done.

This is where I am today. Thank you for listening.

1. Aiden was diagnosed with AT/RT, a rare and aggressive form of pediatric brain cancer, in August of 2019, and he died of complications during surgery the following November.

2. I just pulled that train set out for Tatum this week. The other day, I had a good cry about it.

3. I wonder now if my older children’s stuffed lovies felt the weight of comforting a child who just lost their baby brother.