
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.