That was GREAT !!

This is my favorite video on YouTube.
I've watched it many times.

I must disagree about the Mom.
Her tears of joy seemed sincere to me.
It just seemed like she was expressing her "I cant believe it either" feeling. She SOOO wants to believe its Ah Ah.
Was it a little much? Perhaps if she had had this monkey a while, but this was Not rehersed.

I believe, past experiences can make us bias, or read too much between the lines, sometimes.

I just chalk this up as their particular way of expressing this amazing reunification.

Three years ago my oldest son lost his most precious lovy, "Beary", a Beanie Baby polar bear that he had from infancy. We went to a family members home, then out to eat & home again. When we got home Beary was gone. My son was devistated, my wife & I were upset over it too. We found him almost a year later in bags we brought home from my Aunts home, how he got in there we can't figure, but we were all happy to see him again. My son is almost 11 now and still loves his Beary just as much and still sleeps with him. Beary has gone everywhere with our family, camping, boating, vacations,etc. He's starting to show his age, we don't want to wash him too much anymore for fear that he'll fall apart in the wash. When ever he leaves the house we do a Beary check, don't want to go through that again.

I had a blanket...

My mother cut it into smaller and smaller pieces and then finally threw it away.

Only my wife knows how much anger I still have going on inside, and the sad thing is, if my mom had just kept her yap shut about the fact that that is what she did, I wouldn't be feeling anger about it at all. How insane is that?

Its a fire-wire to our inner child. In fact, now that this topic has opened-up, I've realized so much more that there IS an inner-child, and that he's not a figment of psycho-babble hippie-sh%t. And this kid in the video is not displaying any trivial emotion. This sh*t is real, real, real!!!

I was never given, nor allowed to have a bear. I think it was from an issue my father had as a child...cuz I asked and asked and asked for one and never got one...but I never saw the inside of a toy-store either. Seriously...I never was allowed in a toy-store as a kid.

So I became very attached to a stuffed dog named Spottie. My daughter learned of him in some conversation years ago and it bugs her to no end that Spottie was left behind in the attic of my childhood house. She envisions asking the current owners to allow access to the attic to rescue Spottie and reunite me with him. If we drive through my hometown, she demands that we stop at the old house for Spottie. I get so choked-up, I can't even speak.

...and damn-it all, I have to leave the room every time she brings it up at home so I can go fall apart in private. I think I loved that stuffed dog more than any person in my childhood years.

These creatures NEVER betray us...never die...never frighten or hit us. They are ALWAYS there for us. They will listen to anything the child has to say or feel.

What other entity in our lives carries those attributes? For ANY child, abused or not, those are huge life-factors.

i had a crazy quilt from my real grandma - my real father's mother. i rarely saw her after he died. i was very attached to it and always used it for my naps and night time. i never dragged it around with me - but it was always there to come back to. it made me feel safe and loved. it disappeared at some point after mom remarried. i don't remember how old i was but i was sad about it. i don't know if anyone even knew how much it meant to me.

after i grew up and got married, we visited my grandma. she was very old and said she wanted me to have something to remember her by. since i didn't have much history with her, it wasn't like i remembered things in her house and associated them with good memories. but i mentioned the quilt that i had as a child and she said she had a couple that i could see and have what i wanted. one of them was a full-sized crazy quilt very similar in appearance to the child-sized one i had lost. i was amazed to see that some of the print fabric patches were even exactly the same designs that were in my old one. it is now one of my cherished possessions - and one of very few links to the time "before" - and to my original, blood family.

Lee

Is anyone else feeling some strong....something with these wires to the boy?

One of my strongest emotions as a child was fear and floor-drop-out-from-under-you insecurity. In the past month, i was able to identify the large and missing component of childhood, popularly known as safety and security. I'm guessing we are/were all there to some extent. And fk, does it ever hurt like heck now.

I also remember some peers (very closed age-peers) in childhood clearly lacking those "lovies." I was stumped with the other boys who did not have their own version of "spottie," or any other object of dramatic attachment. I remember them (the other boys) seeming SO secure even without their own "spottie." Those are the boys who went on to full, bold lives ... became doctors, lawyers, an architect, one global oil figure in Brasil.

I'm not equating their life paths to happiness, but I am pointing out that given a normal foundation, a child is eligible to participate in this world with great latitude and power.

For me, this seems to be the road to some real, emotional understanding of little Robbie and his life and what I was given to work with. Maybe I can be less brutal on myself?