Understanding Mr. Kelley

According to my mother, I loved Mr. Kelley above all other things. 

I have no memory of him at all.

Mr. Kelley resurfaced from my early childhood when the crawl space in the basement flooded.  Many treasures were stored there, including, it seemed, my very favorite toy.  Daddooooo and Brother bent over beneath the very low beams, tossing out moldy this and soaking wet that when G'ma cried Mr. Kelley!  Oh, no, Mr. Kelley

Who?

You don't remember Mr. Kelley?  You loved Mr. Kelley.

I continued to stare at a sodden clown, his red/white/blue ruffled collar drooping, his elongated limbs dangling, my mother's hand strangling his neck, her expression a mystery to 16 year old me.

Fast forward to the nightgown Little Cuter loved to shreds, the one she wondered why I'd saved all these years.  Consider Big Cuter gently shaking his head, telling me that although I remembered those books, the ones I'd saved in the box, the ones I'd read over and over every night for years and years and years to them, they, sadly, did not.

Those happiest of memories, apparently, exist for mothers alone.