Toys

My husband wants to buy a new car. Our Prius is ten years old and we’re tired of its stiff, noisy ride. Plus, its notorious blind spot is becoming more and more of an issue for us as we age. We don’t feel safe any more passing on the highway – cars seem to come out of nowhere. We’ve had several close calls which have left us shaken. So I’m in favor of a new car, especially if it has one of those indicators that tell you when there’s someone in your blind spot.

The garage on the first floor of our townhouse is our only storage – we don’t have either an attic or a basement. We keep our bikes in it, as well as our gardening tools, our “earthquake preparedness” supplies, and a large number of plastic bins filled with some of our kids’ old toys.

As a result, we don’t park the Prius in the garage – there’s not enough room for it. We leave it outside in our assigned spot in front of our garage. But if we buy a new car, it would certainly be nice if we could park it indoors.

We discuss our options. We could rent a small storage unit. There’s a storage place just a few blocks from us. We could put some kind of shed out on our patio. Or we could get rid of some stuff. My husband is in favor of getting rid of the toys.  

“They’re just sitting out there,” he says. “Who knows when or even if the kids will ever want them. We could buy replacements if they ever did. In the meantime, there are children in the world who could be using the toys right now.”

“But they’re special!” I say.

“What’s so special about a bunch of maple blocks? Or a dozen boxes full of Lego bricks?  They’re completely replaceable. There’s nothing personal about them. If any of the kids ever want a set for their own kids, we can buy them again. We can afford it.”

Part of me thinks my husband is right – there are children out there who could use these toys right now. What’s the sense in having them sit in boxes in our garage, not being played with?  But part of me feels ridiculously threatened by his suggestion. Does he think I’m a bad person for wanting to hold onto some of my kids’ old toys instead of giving them to children who are less fortunate? Doesn’t he remember how many toys we’ve already given away?

When we downsized from a thirteen room suburban house to this six room urban townhouse, we gave away a lot of stuff – furniture, books, clothes, toys. But I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of all of the toys. I felt a deep need to hold onto some of them.

Almost all of the toys I had when I was a child were immediately passed on to younger siblings the second I was done with them. I didn’t get to keep much except a few stuffed animals and my beloved Barbie dolls. Maybe that’s why I want to hold onto some of my own kids’ toys. But I think it goes deeper than that.

I realize that the maple blocks are replaceable. But what pleasure I took in the fact that we were able to afford them for our kids. My own childhood didn’t include any toys that cost that much. My husband’s did, so maybe that’s why it’s easy for him to imagine giving them away.  “We can just buy more,” he says. And I think, “But they were so expensive! We need to keep them!” 

They’re also beautiful – such perfect shapes, the long blocks exactly twice as long as the short blocks, the maple so smooth and golden. And what amazing things our daughter Hannah built with them. She spent many hours creating whole villages and populating them with little plastic animals. When I asked her about them, she would tell me complicated stories about the buildings in the villages, who worked in the shops, who lived in the houses. Having the blocks in the garage makes me feel like Hannah’s creations are somehow still close, like Hannah herself is somehow still close.

The Legos may not be as beautiful as the maple blocks, but I love the many bright colors of the bricks, the reds and yellows and greens and blues. In the garage there’s one small bin for each of these colors, then a large bin for the hundreds of gray bricks, leftover from the succession of Star Wars battle ships that our son Caleb built. I was never a huge Star Wars fan, but I still spent hours helping Caleb find the next piece he needed as he built these complicated models. I was proud of how hard he worked to complete them and shared his pleasure as we admired the finished products. Knowing the Legos are nearby makes me feel as if I can time-travel back to those model-building days (perhaps in a gray spaceship?) and sit beside Caleb for a few minutes.

And how could I possibly let go of our daughter Rutie’s American Girl dolls? It would be like giving away some old friends. And what busy friends they were! At the bidding of Rutie’s imagination, they went to school, they played instruments, they celebrated holidays. And of course, each new activity required a new outfit. One of the dolls was a figure skater and spent time in a cast after she broke her leg, foretelling in an eerie way what would happen to Rutie herself when she was in high school. When Rutie outgrew the dolls, I sent them to the American Girl hospital and they came back wearing hospital gowns with their hair free of snarls and their plastic skin all cleaned up. I see them in their special boxes when I go to the garage for the vacuum cleaner and I’m transported back to the trip we took to New York City when Rutie was about ten, which included a visit to the huge American Girl store there. I remember Rutie’s delight that afternoon in American Girl heaven and I feel her spirit nearby. 

Seeing the toys, it all comes back to me, my children, everything I gave them, the toys the least of it, and the painful, necessary day when each of them did what they were supposed to do and went out into the world, became adults, and left me with these wonderful memories and a bunch of old toys in plastic bins. I suppose I’ll let go of the toys one of these days. But luckily, the memories are mine forever.