A Guest Post by Aren R. Cohen, M.A.P.P.
Ianto and I met when I was seven. Despite his not being my biological parent, we adopted each other immediately.
By the time I reached high school, Ianto and I bristled at the term "step" to define our connection. Being a "step" was too reductive to describe the nature of our kinship. One night, our dinner conversation turned to my school day. I was studying osmosis in biology class. My mother, a teacher, reviewed the scientific concept with me, while Ianto cracked silly jokes to make it fun. Ianto, not a scientist, prefers wordplay and quirky metaphors.
Finally, when I had understood the concept, Ianto gleefully shared his own "eureka" moment: "That's it!" he exclaimed. "I'm your father by osmosis!"
The label has stuck. Ianto is my osmotic father. His actions are proof of it.
* * *
Jacques is an old frog now. Despite his French name, he arrived in New York from Cambridge, England in 1988. He wears a loud red paisley pattern from Liberty of London, but it has faded over time.
If Jacques were human, he would walk with a strange limp. If asked, he would smile a crooked grin and lament his wild youth. As a beanbag animal, his scars and stitches mark fictional illnesses and injuries.
When Jacques arrived home in my luggage, he was jejune and mirthful. He quickly assumed the airs of a world-wise and debonair frog. He had no idea when he was packed in a bag that he'd end up in the raucous and frolicking environment – my bedroom in apartment 3F.
There was already a coterie of stuffed animals that inhabited my adolescent bedroom. Three other beanbag creatures, known as Puggles, hailed from the legendary FAO Schwarz. They resembled moles and were a happy green and yellow family. The green father and yellow mother had googly-eyes. The yellow baby “Pugglet” was still asleep. On the top of its snout were sewn slits accompanying its nylon whiskers.
The Pound Puppy, a fashionable stuffed animal acquired a few years earlier, was dubbed "Sir Andrew" in honor of my favorite character in Twelfth Night.
A Snoopy doll, who wore a Macy’s Christmas hat, was given to me by a handsome young man named Neil, who was five years older than me and looked like the pop singer George Michael. My mom and Ianto had befriended Neil when they had picked me up at summer camp. Neil, like Ianto, was Welsh.
I digress.
Along with the Puggle family, Sir Andrew, and Snoopy, Jacques found a gibbon monkey, who was always just known as "Monkey." Monkey had a large goofy smile and long limbs. Monkey soon became Jacques’ greatest friend and partner in crime.
I wasn't overly attached to my stuffed animals. Mom and Ianto tried to make me a pet lover, but my allergies precluded any real furry being in our house. Since I couldn’t cuddle with the turtles, tortoises, or fish that were meant to teach me the value of caring for another life, I never bonded with them. But when Jacques arrived home with me from Cambridge, my relationship with my stuffed animals would change and blossom, all because of Ianto.
Ianto’s impetus for animating the stuffed creatures was borne out of his own fears. Jacques, Monkey, and “the Gang” came to life the first night I went out on a date with my high school boyfriend.
Ianto, concerned that once I walked out the door that night I would forever find fewer and fewer reasons to return home, decided he needed to make sure I was motivated to return safely to 3F. That began a saga that would make Jacques the most wizened, party-animal frog there ever was.
Soon a ritual developed.
By the time I reached high school, Ianto and I bristled at the term "step" to define our connection. Being a "step" was too reductive to describe the nature of our kinship.
On weekend nights, or whenever I was out late, Ianto would stage what were affectionately dubbed "tableaux" with the animals. Jacques got his name the night he taught an art history lesson. Wearing a mini beret and sitting on a book of Monet’s works, Jacques sat on a two-page spread of one of Monet’s Waterlilies paintings. The note on the bedroom door, which Ianto would always write in his non-dominant hand to produce a childlike scrawl, was signed “xoxo, The GANG.”
That particular night, Ianto had written “Froggie is giving a lecture on Monet’s painting, titled Home.” It was sheer conflation and absurdity, but I understood instantly. The frog had wrongly assumed Monet was also a frog and, therefore, when he painted waterlilies, the artist had painted his home. Like the artist, my frog was now French and would forever be named Jacques.
Ianto had accomplished his mission. I would always be curious about what Ianto would conjure up and what would await me with Jacques, Monkey, and the Gang.
* * *
In retrospect, it seems like Ianto’s imagination was endless. The Gang was filled with all sorts of unexpected antics. One time, the Gang, directed by Jacques and Monkey, built Stonehenge. Using sofa cushions as building material and string swung over the light fixture for leverage, the group became modern Druid architects.
Another time, the animals attended a concert. I found the Monkey at the piano wearing my reflective mirrored sunglasses. He and the rest of the Gang were looking at my portrait, and the note Ianto left informed me that the Monkey was singing Elton John’s "Your Song."
When I got to college, Ianto enjoyed having audiences to entertain, so he upped his game. For my Californian roommates, Jacques and the Gang became bakers. They migrated out of my bedroom and formed an assembly line in the "goo factory" on the living room sofa. Befitting a New York institution, the stuffed animals glued sesame seeds on bagels.
Jacques and Ianto stopped being housemates many years ago. Jacques moved with me when I left home. Now, whenever I see Jacques sitting on my bedroom dresser, I think of Ianto, my osmotic dad.
In the right mood, I fix Jacques up. When he reminds me that I need to reminisce about "the good old days," I pick up the phone and call Ianto.
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Aren R. Cohen, M.A.P.P., is an educational consultant and learning specialist with Strengths For Students. She uses the philosophies of positive psychology and proven educational pedagogy to work with academically, motivationally, and emotionally challenged students, teaching them to use their strengths of character to build resilience and change academic challenges into educational triumphs. Aren holds a Masters in Positive Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania, a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude from Harvard University, and a Masters of Business Administration from New York University’s Stern School of Business. Aren is a native New Yorker and an alumna of both the Brearley School and The Midtown Ethical Culture School.
