It must have been from a grandparent. It was a grandparent-esque gift. I have my suspicions of which one it was from, but I'll keep that to myself.

It was a dull light green. Surely plumper and fuzzier when I first got him than what he is now, emaciated and patchy, cancerous, almost. I'd imagine, at least.

From what I know, I brought him everywhere. A steady presence being dragged around carelessly by his tail or a limb or a scale on his back. He took his fair share of tumbles, whether on a carpet or wood floor or somewhere less safe or sanitary like a sidewalk or a puddle or the chipped tiles of a public bathroom. I wonder if my mother ever had to sew him up. I wonder if my mother knew how to sew.

He was part of the family, but I also took him for granted. I imagine I left him places. I imagine I made a big fuss about it whenever I did, too. But once reunited, the pattern of carelessness returned. I realize now it was the idea of him that mattered. The comfort of just knowing he was with me. Knowing that everything he represented was with me.

Of course, I didn't know what he represented, and if I did, I couldn't explain it. At least until she died. Then I knew.

But how do you know what a child sees in a stuffed dinosaur? I can speculate. But I can't know. So I'll speculate. Comfort? Comfort or maybe consistency? I can't decide which. Or if it's both. Probably consistency more so than comfort. Children don't like change. Humans don't like change. I don't like change. I had him. I didn't want to not have him.

After she died we went to New Orleans. Those two events aren't related but sometimes it feels like they are. Maybe they kind of are. Maybe I wouldn't have gone if she hadn't died. So maybe they kind of are.

I was in a daycare with the other kids whose parents were in town for a conference. Me and Dino the dull light green dinosaur and the other kids. I don't know when I lost him. I suppose that much is probably obvious. We got home and he wasn't there anymore. I lost it.

My dad called the hotel. I know that for a fact. I wonder if he called the airline we had flown home, or the company of the bus we had to take on a four-hour ride across the border of Louisiana and into Alabama to visit his sister because my dad lost his I.D. That return bus ride is where a woman assumed my aunt was my grandmother as we cried together while saying our goodbyes. She'll never forget that. And now neither will I.

I wonder if he called the airport whose TSA agent he begged unsuccessfully and then had to bribe with what cash he had in his wallet to get us through security because he lost his I.D. Can you call an airport? I wonder if he called the bus stops, the cab company whose driver dropped us at the airport in Alabama, any restaurants or stores we went to.

I'd like to think another kid found Dino. Well, that's what I'm supposed to think. Because if I can't enjoy him, at least some other kid might have been able to give him a good life. But I don't think that. In fact, I know he's buried beneath tons of trash, a shell of what he once was. But that's okay, because I don't miss him. I miss what he was to me.