Eulogy for a PillowPet Lauren Goodman

eulogy for a PILLOWPET

I remember when I first saw you. A single commercial was enough for your musical slogan to stick to my young, eight-year-old brain. I remember how it played over and over on my dusty TV screen, stuck in an eternal loop in between my favorite cartoons.“It’s a pillow! It’s a pet! It’s a PillowPet!” your siren song crooned. It was an enchanting intonation that let me know I had to have you. When you came, you were modest, but also all that I had dreamed you to be. A baby pink bunny rabbit with fluffy fur that longed to be ruffled, and big, floppy ears that seemed longer than my whole arm - so simple, so perfect. I remember how I would sit on your back, urging you to gallop and ride me to freedom. I remember how I used to set you up before a playdate, how I made you into a steadfast soldier, guarding the front of my bed with your life. I remember how after watching “Toy Story,” I stayed up past my bedtime and looked skeptically into your beady, black eyes, pleading with you to talk to me and reveal your deepest secret. I remember everything, except for the moment I lost you. Maybe it happened gradually, as homework became lengthy and school turned from novel to exhausting, and when I traded the term “playdate” for “hang out.” Maybe it happened all at once, the moment I became bored of you. Maybe it happened over the years of you collecting dust in a pink gingham bin that was stiff and immovable - a monument of the days when I would hold up a number on my fingers to show how old I was. All I know is that I held you last night after a long day of trying to be mature, nostalgic for the times when I had endless energy. Your dark, plastic eyes looked right through me, soulless and still. I was suddenly eight years old again, searching for a sign of life in the stuffing of my old friend, silently begging you to speak.