Finding meaning in small acts of repair
I try to figure out how to make the little red ears stand up. They did, when this cute little stuffed dog toy came out of the package.
He had a loud and wonderful squeak when he was brand new, less than a week ago. But that squeak, I know this, that squeak is engineered. It hits a frequency that sounds like distress to a retriever’s ears. It is no accident. The toy companies know exactly what they’re doing. They design these toys for destruction.
And Jesse? Jesse is just being what we humans bred him to be. Apparently no retriever dog’s toy is officially dead until the squeaker has been torn of its cloth body. This must be accomplished! Our retriever lives by this law and then mourns the loss of his prey. It’s no fun anymore!
The Lamb Chop laid sprawled on the floor, those cute little red ears hanging by the proverbial thread. One arm, torn off at the seam, was visible across the room. I found its squeaker, surgically removed through the armpit, when I stepped on it in the kitchen. That woke me up before I even had coffee.
What am I doing? There are so many other things I could be doing. But here I am I repairing a dog toy when there is so much to do. Important things, perhaps. Things that would require deeper thought than this hand sewing with needle and thread.
But my hands are already moving. Threading. Stitching. Repairing something I know full well will be destroyed again. It may by tomorrow. I might save it for then, But maybe I will give it back this afternoon.
I want to call this wasteful. Part of me does call it wasteful. Still, another part of me knows that Jesse will be thrilled when his little Lamb Chop returns from the grave. I can already see his face when I give it back to him. I anticipate his eyes imploring me to go outside RIGHT NOW. His whole body will come to attention. He’ll grab it gently at first, almost reverently before our game begins again.
I will throw it out across the yard. He will seek to catch it in the air, which he often manages to do. Clever dog! When he misses, he will pick his toy up off the ground and shake his head violently as if he’s angry with his failure. He will bring it back for me to throw, again and again. And again. And again, yet another time.
How wonderful to be so excited! This, I think, is why we love them. But here’s what I’m sitting with: I’m part of a system I am only dimly aware of as my fingers are stitching.
The pet industry wants me, expects me, to throw this away and buy another. That’s the design, toys that last a week or maybe two. Squeakers are engineered to trigger prey drive so intense the toy cannot survive it. They are inexpensive enough, especially at Christmas time that replacement feels easier than repair. The whole cycle repeats forever and ever amen.
I’m disrupting that cycle, only slightly. I already bought the toy. I’m already in the system. My small rebellion, this Sunday afternoon, doesn’t change much.
Except that it changes something in me. When I repair instead of replace, I’m practicing something. It’s about refusing the convenience of this toy being disposable, at least for this moment. Perhaps it is also demonstrating love for Jesse in a way that feels right to me, even if it’s terribly inefficient.
And definitely, I think I’m maintaining a cycle that serves me more than I want to admit. Jesse destroys, I repair. Jesse destroys, I repair. He needs me to fix what he breaks. I need to be needed. I should not need to be needed, should I?
What if I just bought him toys that last longer? Indestructible rubber instead of cloth? I have done that. Those toys are not warm and fuzzy. Those, I do not have to sew, and he’d still have toys. But they aren’t cute.
And then I wouldn’t have this. This quiet Sunday afternoon with needle and thread, with its anticipation of doggy joy. I have this small act of care that feels like love made visible.
Does that make me devoted or stuck? .
Our pets live in the present moment in a way we humans often don’t manage. They remind us, like the emissaries from the angelic realm I believe they are, that the present moment is the best place to be. They may not literally be angels, but they are pretty darn close.
Jesse doesn’t wonder if playing fetch is a good use of his time. He doesn’t calculate the value of his joy. He just… is. Present. Fully alive in this moment.
And here I am, trying to learn that from him while simultaneously asking myself if sewing his toy is worthwhile. The irony isn’t lost on me.
I finish the last stitch. The red ears don’t stand up quite the way they did when the toy was new, but they’re attached. The squeaker is back inside. The arm is reattached.
Lamb Chop whole again, for now. I know this won’t last. I know I’ll be doing this again soon, or the toy will finally be beyond all repair and I’ll have to let it go.
But for now, I’ve kept something from the grave. I’ve said, “Not yet. Not today”.
And perhaps that is enough. Maybe the question isn’t whether this matters in the larger scheme of life. Maybe the question is what else am I keeping from the grave? What else am I repairing that’s meant to break? What other cycles am I in without fully seeing them? This is a lifelong pattern of mine. And I have not let it go.
Sometimes I think I ought to, like the leftovers I insist on putting in the refrigerator well knowing my husband is likely to throw them out before I am ready for that to happen. This is ingrained within me. I don’t have answers yet. I don’t know if I ever will, actually.
Sometimes I have an insight and gleefully nourish it for a time, only to lose sight of it. Then later after some error in thinking that causes me pain, or causes someone around me pain, I find that same insight again and hope to maintain it this time. I wince when this happens, more often then I would like.
But today I have a repaired toy. Our dog will be thrilled, and this moment of completion, temporary and small as it is, is mine.
It is designed by a system I want to buck, a pattern I’ve begun to question and wonder if I will ever have an answer. It is also meaningful yet possibly meaningless both at the same time.
I’m still learning to hold all of that without needing to resolve it.
For now, put away my scissors, needle and thread. I take the picture I will put at the beginning of this post that I will write. Jesse will come running when I call him with this toy in my hand.
He always comes, simply trusting that something good is coming. Maybe that’s the whole lesson right there.
Copyright 2026 Marian Haftel Smith