From early on, kids witness some of the worst things this world has to offer. Suffering, death, divorce, bullying, climate change and poverty. Preparing kids for these inevitabilities and guiding them through managing these issues is part of the learning and maturing process.
But there also needs to be a fair and real representation of all the good things about experiencing the world. Children must be directed to acts of goodness, courage and devotion as examples of the inherent potential in people, and by extension in themselves.
Acts such as this one:
Imagine you’ve just lost one of your most prized possessions at the busiest place around town – the airport. That’s what happened to 8-year-old August Bridges – or Gussie, as her family calls her – last week.
Gussie was sitting at a table inside the Norfolk International Airport with her mom and dad, Kelly and Jonathan Bridges, and her favorite stuffed animal, a small, furry dog named Cookie Dough.
Not until the drive home to Virginia Beach did Gussie realize she’d left her toy pup behind.
“I thought she was going to cry,” Kelly said. “She had just got it a few weeks ago out of one of those claw machines at Chicho’s Pizza with her dad, and she was really attached to it.”
Kelly reached for her phone to call the airport’s lost and found desk. They said an airport police officer was on the case of the missing stuffed dog.
Before long, the airport police called Kelly back and told her Cookie Dough had been spotted.
When Jonathan and Gussie went back to retrieve the toy a couple of days later, they found out that Cookie Dough had been pretty busy.
Airport officers had made the dog an honorary policeman for a day and taken pictures to prove it. To show Gussie what her toy had been up to, the officers compiled the photographic evidence in a book.
There were photos of Cookie Dough dressed up as an airport firefighter, driving luggage-carrying carts and even sliding down the escalator rail.
“I’m having fun,” Cookie Dough said, “but don’t try this at home!”
The dog visited some new stuffed animal friends in the gift shop and stopped by the United Service Organizations center.
The officers fed him apples and taught him how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, too.
Beneath a picture of the toy dog staring out over the landing strip, the book read, “Watching the planes just come and go … until you come back to me.”
“They told us he had been on lots of adventures, but we didn’t think it would be anything like this,” Kelly said.
Steve Sterling, deputy executive director of administration and operations for the Norfolk Airport Authority, said the officers saw the opportunity to do something special.
“We knew that the girl’s parents had communicated that she was upset about the lost toy,” Sterling said. “So the dispatcher and police officers just wanted to put a special touch on returning the toy.”
Gussie was thrilled to have her stuffed dog back, Kelly said, but she and her husband were just as impressed by their creativity and kindness.
“It meant a lot to all of us,” Kelly said. “It was just awesome what they did for Gussie.”
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