My Name is Baby Yaya

My name, as it was given to me, is Baby Yaya. I am blond-haired and blue-eyed, with eyes that open and close. I was born in a cardboard box and stood on a shelf among many others for quite some time, looking across the aisle at some attractive stuffed pets.

My adoptive mother was a three-year-old girl. Though I was an inexpensive daughter, I was her favorite child. She took excellent care of me, bathing, dressing, and brushing my hair for about a year and a half until one fateful night in late September at the Hotel Drei Könige in the city of C---, Switzerland.

My grandparents had been traveling by car through Switzerland, Austria, and Germany with my mother, me, and another adult. Every night at our destination, my grandfather and his friend would go out to sing songs my grandfather had written. My grandmother, my mother, and I would often go along to listen if the night would end early.

Sometimes, we would go to dinner first. The waitresses would always ask my mother if she would like pommes frites and were very disappointed to learn that, though American, my mother preferred plain spaghetti with a topping of parmesan. Since it was Wild Season in Switzerland, my grandparents often ate a specialty of the region we were staying in for dinner, which looked interesting. Of course, I did not partake of anything.

It was an enjoyable time. In the mornings, before setting out on the road, we visited the playground in each city. They were all different and inventive, and my grandmother joked that she would like to author a book called Playgrounds of Europe.

One of the playgrounds in Germany had a large sandy area. In the center of the sand was a manual excavator which swiveled in a circle. My mother and I enjoyed moving sand from one location to another for some time before we had to leave.

One of the playgrounds in Austria had what my grandmother called a 'flying fox': that is, you could stand on a large boulder in the park, jump while holding onto bicycle-like handles, and fly across a good portion of the park along a rope. Sailing through space tucked into the top of my mother's buttoned-up fleece was thrilling.

Everything changed for me the night we stayed at the Three Kings Hotel.

We went to bed as usual, me laying by my mother's side, but somehow, in the night, I rolled over and fell between the wall and the box spring under the mattress, though it was a tight squeeze.

The following morning, after returning from breakfast, I could hear my mother and my grandmother searching for me. My grandfather had already loaded their bags into the car. They looked under the bed, behind the mattress, and through all of the drawers in the room and didn't see me.

My grandmother concluded that I must have been placed in the car already. I tried to get her attention but couldn't move from the narrow chasm I had fallen into. Then, oh. How terrible, they left. I was crushed, figuratively and literally.

Soon after, the maids came in to tidy up the room. They also didn't see me as they changed the sheets. And so it went for days and days.

One day, after I had listened for several weeks while hoping to be found, having picked up quite a bit of Swiss German, I heard two hotel staff enter the room. They were talking about a letter from my grandmother begging that I would be restored to my loving mother. They also searched under the bed and opened all the drawers, still not finding me in my narrow hiding place.

More weeks passed. When I had almost given up hope of ever being found, a pair of workers came in and began to move all the furniture. They were there to clean the carpet. The woman spotted me as they moved the bed away from the wall. She picked me up. I was covered in dust because of my lengthy stay at the hotel. She brushed me off and took me over to the telephone in the room. She spoke to someone on the other end of the line. "Ja, ja," she said. My heart leaped momentarily, thinking she knew me, but no, she only asked what she should do with the 'baby' she had found.

The answer displeased her, and she frowned. "Ja, I will take you home," she said, seating me on her supply cart.

At the end of the day, after visiting several rooms, she tucked me carefully into her bag, where I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was in a small apartment. A little girl reached out her arms and cradled me in them. She called me by another name.

Years passed. I have had several mothers. Sometimes, I have been cared for diligently, other times set on a high shelf looking out as my current mother aged out of one such as me. My hair, still blond, is a little thin and crimped with brushing. My clothes are a little worn, though I have new shoes.

I am still loved, so I often tell myself I wasn't abandoned, just misplaced.

Though I haven't seen my mother for twenty-seven years, I think of her every day and wonder if she still misses me. I am sending this out in hopes that someone might know her. Please tell her that her 'Baby Yaya' still loves and misses her.