SAMANTHA

When it was over, they stuck Samantha in the back of my now-grown daughter's closet. Even at 40, it was an ignominious end for a beloved companion. There she laid, floppy ears askew, along with the other castoffs – objects too meaningful to throw away, but too far beyond utilitarian purpose to be more than clutter.

It wasn’t always that way with Samantha. She was the one who greeted our newborn Chanie in her crib when she arrived from the hospital. She was the play-toy of a thousand toddler-fantasies. She was the object of endless childhood cuddling, an accomplice to hours of blissful thumb-sucking. She was a calming bedtime companion.

Forty years ago, Samantha the Dog was plump and soft, plush, bright pink species of stuffed animal, fluffy tail and luxuriant eyelashes. The years of loving wear and tear have not been kind to her, her fur now threadbare and gray, eyes sans lashes, giving her a slumbering look – bedraggled, one would call her.

How could I be such a sop to weep when I first saw her jammed away in the back of the closet? Need it be analyzed? Maybe it just made me feel old. Nah. I already know only too well that I am on a collision course with old age. After all, I am “Zayde” to 9.5 grandchildren

Then maybe this is it: It reminds me of innocent times, nearly a half-century ago, sweet innocence not yet tinged by deceit and cynicism. The innocence of your firstborn holding your finger with a chubby hand or sucking her thumb with Samantha in tow. Guileless youth, when potentials seemed limitless and as yet unsullied by disappointment and failure.

The innocence of my own youth seems to have been, not a lifetime ago, but just the day before yesterday. Now, ragged Samantha is tangible evidence that my adult daughter has also left the innocence of youth to become a successful physician and mother of three.

Chanie will be 40 soon. I thank God I have lived to witness the milestone. I gloat over her academic and professional successes, her idyllic marriage, her beautiful children. But don’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t turn back the clock and regain the innocence that the years and tears and fears have stripped away.

We would play Ring around the Rosie, and all fall down to hugging and laughing and tickling. I would make up the funniest bedtime stories and giggle along with her, Samantha by her side. I would simply be there for her, a real presence in her life, untainted by the abandonment of divorce, the terror of extracting myself from her life by dint of foolish and selfish mistakes. I would do all that and more, if I could only recapture the days of her innocence and mine.

Burying Samantha in the nether reaches of a closet was a rite of passage for all of us, I guess. It likely elicits far less sentiment and gravitas for Chanie at 40 than it does for me at 61. I warn her, though:

One day you, too, will, please God, be 61. You, too, will watch your own children move beyond their childish innocence. You will, please God, beam with pride at what they have gone on to become, as I do of you and Joey and Ben. But you, too, will long – no, ache – for those salad days, and each moment of joy will be tinged by an edge of wistfulness. You will encounter a bit of their childhood flotsam, as I encountered Samantha, and shed a tear, recollecting the innocent times that cannot, despite our pining, be replicated.

Then, remember what Paul Simon wrote:

Time it was and what a time it was,
A time of innocence,
A time of confidences,
Long ago it must be,
I have a photograph,
Preserve your memories,
They’re all that’s left you...

Happy birthday, my sweet baby.