2024 NATIONAL MEDAL
for Museum and Library Service Finalist

The Toy

Author: 
Tracy Tsai
Friday, May 10, 2019

“It’s just a toy,” she says to her inconsolable daughter.

When she was her daughter’s age, halfway across the world, she had lost a blue shovel at a beach in Taiwan. It was cerulean blue with scalloped edges, and it had been swallowed by the ocean. It was the first of many losses her heart would come to endure.

“You’ll get over it soon,” she says, but she knows that’s a lie.