I never thought I would see my little buddy again ...

I was cleaning out my attic yesterday (it needed it, badly!), and my eyes happened to spot something white lying amongst the piles of boxes.  It was a teddy bear.  A tiny, pristine-white teddy bear with piercing, bright-blue eyes, as white as freshly fallen snow.  When I saw it, tears filled my eyes, and the memories came rushing back ...

I am suddenly five years old again, living in my parents' house in Peoria, Illinois.  I'm in bed, stuck with a particularly nasty case of measles.  My parents know how upset I am about being sick in bed, so mama brings me a special little gift.  It is a tiny, tiny teddy bear.  It is very pretty. 

Flash forward to the present day:

Mama and daddy have been gone now for three years.  I still miss them so much; don't think I will ever stop grieving.  My parents died a month from each other:  daddy had scleroderma; mama, Alzheimer's disease.  I took care of both of them until a month before they passed; my sisters and I then made the painfully difficult decision to have them placed into a nursing facility because we couldn't care for them; it got to be too overwhelming ...

Anyway, I was cleaning out the attic, and I found Snowy (which was what I named my special little bear).  I suddenly feel so much younger, yet at the same time, a cloak of sadness overwhelms me.  I miss my parents something awful; I wish they were still alive ...

I wish I had my sisters here with me ... we have always been very close; now they all live faraway from me, and there's no way I can afford to travel to Florida, Colorado, or Delaware (I live in Ohio).  I'm a single parent.  What money I do goes immediately to bills:  gas, electric, water, etc, etc.  Or to my son's needs.  My son is 11 and he is currently spending the summer with his dad in Utah, so I won't see him until August.  (I scrimped and saved to send him to see his daddy; my ex-husband hadn't seen him in four years, since he was seven.  Figured it was time for a boy to see his daddy.)

I am now sitting in my bedroom, looking at Snowy, who sits on my pillow, staring at me with friendly, cobalt-blue eyes.  He still has that sweet, wistful, knowing expression on his once-furry face, and as I stare at the little white bear, tears once again prick my eyes as I think of mama and daddy (and also Corey, my son).  Snowy is the last link I have between I and my parents; until I found him yesterday, I thought I had lost him for good.

You know how kids lose things.  Well, this is what I thought what had happned to Snowy, never imagining that he would soon surface back into my life, at a time when I was feeling sad and nostalgic ...

Nowadays, I plan on taking Snowy everywhere I go.  If people ask about him, I can then share his story and make people see why this tiny white teddy bear is so very important to me.   If I could find a friend for Snowy (perhaps one that looks just like him; it could be his twin), it would be even better!  That way my little friend can have company.