The parable of the lost toy

Consider, if you will, this short tale adapted from/inspired by Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

A father takes his young son to the playground one fine weekend afternoon, as good fathers are wont to do. The boy has brought along with him his favourite toy to play with. After a round on the swings, the boy is let loose on the rest of the equipment while the father sits at a nearby bench to read the newspaper, making sure to glance up every couple of minutes to make sure everything is going fine, which it is, that is until he hears a gasp of horror and a terrible wailing. He looks up in a fright to see that the boy is weeping and running around the playground looking at the ground. After a frantic interrogation, he learns that the boy has lost his toy somewhere while he was running and climbing and playing as boys do.

The father helps look for the toy, but it is small, and has disappeared, much in the way that small toys do. Eventually the search is given up, though the boy is no less distressed. Does the father join him in his wailing and weeping? Does the father say, "Come here, and together we can mourn the loss."? No, he lays his arm around his son's shoulders and tells him that even though he is sad now, and that is to be expected, everything will be all right in the end. He knows this because he has lost many toys in his time, and in his age has acquired the wisdom to know that from time to time toys go missing, just as from time to time they break or are given up by their owners for whatever reason. It is one thing to provide comfort to those who need it, and another entirely to join in their passion, a passion founded as all are on an assumption you know to be untrue, that loss can be avoided and no separation is permanent.