The Lost Button
Life imitates Frog and Toad
Hello, my darling Substackers. I’m back from my Summer break and ready to kick-off the FAll with a new piece. It’s short and sweet. I hope you enjoy it. And if you are not a Subscriber, consider becoming one. If you are feeling extra generous, you can become a paid Subscriber.
Cheers,
Gigi
One of my favorite book series as a child was “Frog and Toad”. I was introduced to these whimsical characters back in 3rd grade. I had a slight speech impediment ( I couldn’t pronounce my “R”s) and so I went to a speech therapist at school 2-3 times per week with a buddy from class. I can’t remember the speech teacher’s name, but I do remember what we read the most- Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel.
It didn’t take me long to learn how to say my “R”s, but the memory of these wonderful stories has stayed with me for 30+ years. I read them to both of my kids when they were little (now 18 and 26.) One story in particular stood out, however.
It is the story of “The Lost Button”.
(Read aloud below via TikTok)
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The plot of this story is simple; Toad loses a button from his favorite jacket. His best friend, Frog, attempts to assist in the finding of said button. Along with the help of the other local woodland creatures, Frog and Toad discover various sundry buttons, but not Toad’s particular button. At the climax of this tale, Toad declares,
“The whole world is covered with buttons, and not one of them is mine!”
Oh, what a mournful lament! It is the most tragic of tragedies.
Until…
It isn’t.
Toad goes home to sulk, but discovers his beloved button laying on the floor of his own house. But that is not all. He regrets the trouble he put his best friend through. And so, Toad takes all of the buttons he collected during the day and sews them onto his jacket, and then gifts it to Frog. All is mended and resolved, the friends rejoice. The End.
If I seem enamored with this simple children’s story, I am. As a child, I must have read it a thousand times. There was something about it that was comforting, satisfying.
As I got older and life got harder, I would recall Toad in all of his frustration in not being able to find the thing that meant so much to him, going out into the world with his friends who attempt to help him find what he lost, only for him to find it himself when he returned home. In my darkest moments I would say to myself,
“The world is covered in buttons, and not one of them is mine,”
And I would weep for the loss of these buttons- the family life I didn’t have as a child and then again as a young mother, the poverty of my youth, the loves I lost, my many attempts (and failures) at higher education. The things I never gave my children.
The world was, indeed, covered in buttons that were not my buttons.
But I, like Toad, have come full circle. I came home to my hometown after many years of wandering the world looking for “buttons”, only to find that everything I wanted was here all along- friends, family, and fulfillment in the streets and old stomping grounds of Athens, Georgia.
Oh, how I suffered like Toad. And oh, how my loved ones were patient with me, always trying to help me find the answers, the solutions to my problems, my “buttons”. And so I am sewing these gifts, these “buttons” on jackets and gifting them to my friends. For now is not a time of taking, but of giving back.
The world is covered in buttons.
There are enough buttons for us all.
Lovely. Great motto for life: Buttons for all!