Kidy
It happens in the middle of playing, little one. One moment you are building, and the next a thought lands like a cold little raindrop: what if nobody comes for me? The room is full of children and toys, and suddenly it feels very far from home. The missing feeling sits down in your tummy and will not move.
Growy climbs out from behind the block basket and holds up something that was not there before: a bracelet, floating in the air, made of big soft beads of light. 'Your day,' says Growy. 'Every bead is one piece of it. Arriving. Playing. Lunch. Resting. Snack. And this one at the end, the door bead, that is the one where your grown-up stands in the doorway.' The door bead is glowing. Not faintly. Warmly, steadily, like a little lamp.
'Why is that one already lit?' you ask. 'Because it got lit this morning,' says Growy, 'at the exact moment of the goodbye hug. That is how it works. The hug lights the door bead, and nothing can unlight it. It has been glowing back there all day, whether you look at it or not.' You look at it for a long time. It does not flicker once.
Growy, of course, wants the door bead NOW, and starts shoving the beads along the string, mmph, MMPH. The beads do not budge, not even a little. 'Growy,' you say, patting the lunch bead, 'you cannot push a bead. You have to ride it.' Growy stops shoving and sits on the lunch bead like a swing, and it turns out riding is much better. 'Coming for you is not a maybe,' says Growy, swinging. 'It has been glowing since the morning hug.'
And so the day rides on, bead by bead, and at the end of the last one there is the doorway, and in the doorway, exactly as lit as promised, your grown-up, arms already open. 'So, little one,' Growy asks on the way home, 'did we grow a little today?' You did. 'Here is your little grow for tomorrow,' says Growy. 'When the missing feeling comes, name the bead you are on, and peek at the glowing door bead.' See you tomorrow, little one.