Stuffed Animals and 9-11

I don’t know anything about psychology or mental illness, but twice now I have come across individuals who believe stuffed animals are alive, so that must be a thing. That condition must have a name. 

Recently, my flying partner had to serve a stuffed penguin lunch. She didn’t have any choice because a paying passenger had bought two first-class seats: one for herself, and one for Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, a pair of stuffed penguins. While taking meal orders, the first-class passenger informed my co-worker that the couple (of penguins) were arguing and that Mr. Jackson was not hungry, but Mrs. Jackson was. And that Mrs. Jackson would also like a diet coke. So, my professional co-worker laid down a tray of chicken piccata with a glass of diet coke in front of Mrs. Jackson. Deciding when Mrs. Jackson was finished must have been a trickier business. 

It takes a lot to surprise a flight attendant, but this episode didn’t phase me a bit because this was not my first encounter with anthropomorphism. (I looked that word up -it does have a name) No, years prior, I had worked with a flight attendant who brought several stuffed animals to work. She arranged them to sit on top of the seats in the last row so they could watch the movie. Then she put headsets on them so they could listen. We figured she was just playing around or maybe a little bit eccentric. She kept the joke going by feeding them lunch, talking about them, talking to them. They had names. But none of us thought anything of it, until the flight was over, and we were packing up our things to go. This flight attendant purposefully arranged the stuffed animals in her bag, careful to expose their faces “so they could breathe,” she said. And I realized; this wasn’t a joke. 

She had told me about each animal, and how her husband had given her, her most recent “friend” after 9/11 because she was afraid to go back to work. I thought about how her husband must worry about her. Worry that she believes these stuffed animals were real, but worry so much, and so helplessly, that he would perpetuate that belief. How terrified she must be. How terrified he must be.

She was broken, fragile, scared, but she was trying. And he was trying, and more importantly, he was accepting and loving. Their story was a lesson of compassion. And years later, upon meeting Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, and their owner, I had the opportunity to apply that lesson once again.