By Ashlee Gadd
@ashleegadd

“Did you check outside?” my husband asks. 

“I’ve checked everywhere,” I hiss, slamming a kitchen cabinet shut. 

Our daughter’s lovey is missing. Again. I have turned the house upside down, spiraling around like a tornado emptying baskets of toys, throwing pillows off the couch, lifting mattresses off bed frames. I’ve checked under the dressers, behind the curtains, inside the bathroom drawers. I’ve checked the laundry hampers, the closets, the dishwasher, and, yes—even the toilets. (I wouldn’t have thought to look there, but a few months ago, my precious two-year-old put a bunch of plastic stacking cups in ours. When I fished them out, I discovered a handful of soggy french fries hiding underneath. Naturally).

Presley is toddling behind me crying, an excruciating soundtrack for this never-ending scavenger hunt. Naptime should have started 30 minutes ago.

“How can it just be… gone?!” I wail, on the verge of tears myself. 

My husband excuses himself to take a phone call for work, mouthing I’m sorry as he closes the bedroom door. 

I sigh a big, dramatic sigh. “Pres, WHERE DID YOU PUT LOVEY?” I ask her again, as if she’s done this on purpose, as if she actually knows where it is. 

I attempt to retrace her steps, a la Day In The Life Of A Two-Year-Old. Where has she been? What has she done today? I check the bathtub. The washing machine and dryer. I open the media cabinet, check the nightstand drawers, get down on the floor to look underneath the couches. I slip my hands into pillowcases, pop the lids off the memory boxes. Presley’s rubbing her eyes, crying on and off. My stomach is growling. It’s now 45 minutes past naptime for her—and 45 minutes past lunchtime for me. 

With one final exasperated sigh, I raise the white flag. 

It’s time for backup lovey. 

“Come here, Babe,” I say gently, pulling her into my arms, “Today we’re gonna have to sleep with New Lovey, okay?” 

She shakes her head no, wailing, but I stay strong. I retrieve a new lovey from her bottom dresser drawer, one of three backups I bought in a panic after I realized how much Lovey meant to her. I coax my daughter into the rocking chair with me and rub the new lovey against her face—the same tan fuzzy square, the same bunny ears.

“Wow, Pres! This lovey is SO soft!” I tell her, faking the enthusiasm of a parent trying to hype up broccoli. 

She looks at me like I’ve just grown a second head. Before I can stop her, she grabs New Lovey out of my hand and throws it on the ground, yelling, “DAT’S NOT ME LOVEY!!!” 

Who do I think I’m fooling? New Lovey will never be Original Lovey. I’d have to run it over with the car, drool on it every day for a year, wash it 72 times. I tell her I’m sorry and that I’ll keep looking, but it’s naptime now and you have to go to sleep. I shove a pacifier in her mouth, set her down in the crib, tuck a blanket around her legs, and walk out to the sound of her crying hysterically, “I neeeeeed me loveeeeyyyyy!”

I close the door and take mental inventory of every place I’ve already checked. Where could I have missed? Where haven’t I looked? Finally, it dawns on me: the garbage. I did not check the kitchen garbage can. 

I take a deep breath, open the lid, scrunch up my face, and dig in. 

And there it is: underneath orange peels, a stack of spam mail, two empty yogurt cups. Original Lovey. I lift it up by the corner using my pointer finger and thumb, as if it’s crawling with bugs. There’s no mistaking: it smells bad. Really bad. Like a mixture of sour milk and damp coffee grounds. 

I know it needs to be washed, but we’re already 50 minutes past naptime and it will take 90 minutes to complete a full cycle of laundry. 

I shake lovey out over the kitchen sink, and bring it to her.

***

This one memory stands out crystal clear amid thousands of blurry ones: me, a new mom, rocking my son in the rocking chair late at night, staring at his perfect face, inhaling his intoxicating newborn scent, my heart on the verge of bursting out of my chest, realizing, with acute awareness—I would throw my body in front of a bus for this child. 

Sure, I had heard women talk about motherhood in that sacrificial context before. It’s in the cheesy Hallmark cards and stamped across mugs in gift shops. Motherhood is forever having your heart walk around outside your body, yaddy yaddy ya. 

But that one night holding my son in the rocking chair, I remember being hit with a startling realization: this is only a fraction of how much God loves me. And it’s like something clicked in me for the very first time—this moment where I knew, deep in my bones, that I was truly, undeniably, overwhelmingly loved. 

***

Lovey has gone missing. Again. 

Hey Shark Tank, here’s an idea: a tiny tracking device you can plant inside loveys. It needs to be small, unobtrusive, like one of those microchips you put inside dogs. I’d like it to be connected to an app with a giant red button that simply says: FIND LOVEY. One push and Lovey beeps as loud as a fire alarm.

(I’d pay $24.99 for this product, for any entrepreneurs reading).

We’re back to square one, and this time, I’ve already checked the garbage can. My husband is convinced she’s lost Lovey on purpose to procrastinate naptime. I’m not convinced. Everyone is looking, including her two older brothers. We’ve even upped the stakes by creating a reward: $5 cash to whoever finds it first.

It occurs to me, again, somewhere between looking in the refrigerator and each of the kitchen drawers—this is love. I can just imagine my pre-mom self rolling her eyes right now, like What’s the big deal? She’ll get over it. She’ll fall asleep, eventually. 

But to be a mother is to love, sacrificially, over and over again. Love is what drives us to dig through the trash until we find a mangled piece of fuzzy fabric covered in coffee grounds. This lovey, for whatever reason, is comforting to my daughter. She needs it. She loves it. She cannot sleep without it. And—because we love her—we will do anything to find it. We will turn over every last hiding spot. We will dig through every cabinet, every drawer, every garbage can, every toilet.

We will never stop looking.

I don’t have 100 kids, but if the Shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one, this is me leaving the 99 things on my to-do list to find the one thing my daughter can’t sleep without. 

In the midst of this hunt, this impossible search, I feel it again. Deep in my bones. If I am willing to flip this house upside down in an effort to give my daughter the one small thing that brings her comfort—how much more is God willing to do for me, to ensure I receive the same peace? Even on my worst days, I’m more valuable to Him than sheep and sparrows, lilies and loveys. He’d flip over the universe to find me if I ever got lost.

Eventually it is Presley who finds Lovey wedged in the couch cushions. She holds it up in the air, triumphant.

My husband looks at me and smirks, “I told you she was messing with us.” 

We head back to her room, collecting her pacifier and plastic baby doll on the way. She sticks the paci in her mouth, tucks the baby under her arm, and with Original Lovey clutched carefully in her left hand, she says matter-of-factly: “Now I have everyfing I need.”

I smile at her certainty.

“You sure do, Pres. You sure do.” 

Words and photo by Ashlee Gadd.