Death of the Beloved Teddy Bear
When I found him, all worn and floppy with barely any stuffing left in him, my heart ached. I’d had this small, once fuzzy and plump brown teddy bear for as long as I could remember. My mother told me once he had been my very first stuffed animal, very first toy, even. She was sure the nurses gave him to her as she was being wheeled to the car by an orderly two days after I was born. According to my mother, he also had a pale blue bow affixed to his neck that she promptly cut off with scissors. Being her first and only child, my mother was paranoid those first few months. She was terrified I’d chew it off and choke. (She was also resentful the nurses gave her a bear clearly meant for a boy).
I went with him everywhere: from room to room in our modest brick house, to friends’ houses, and to restaurants where I fed Teddy (I renamed him when the mood struck me, which was often. His first name, Wa, turned into Puppy, which turned into Bear, which morphed into Vinny. He had many more names after that until I was fourteen and I named him Craig) everything I ate. He ate chicken fingers, carrots, pizza, and ice cream and drank my juice. He took adventures under the sea (also known as the washer) every few days. He always came out so soft and warm, wash after wash.
I took him to daycare and to school until the fifth grade, when it was considered uncool to carry such a baby thing around. I tried my hardest to fit in with my peers then, and off Teddy went to sit on my bed until my freshman year of high school. It was more important than ever to fit in with the crowd. I stuffed him in drawer after drawer when I had friends over, desperate to hide everything deemed “uncool”. I yearned to be one of the cool kids and Teddy would not help me achieve this goal. Finally I threw him onto my closet floor, just before I began throwing dirty, discarded clothes, makeup, magazines, and everything else that covered my bedroom’s light green carpet as an attempt to clean my room.
By the time he reached my closet floor, he was tan instead of brown, from so many washings, his fur worn and stained. A button replaced his left eye from when the neighbor’s puppy chewed it off when I was five. The patch on his stomach came shortly before he met his fate on my closet floor. He had ripped from age, and I tried to sew him up myself. Stuffing continued to push its way out of the “scar” on his stomach. It wasn’t until I burned a hole into his stomach that I had my mother sew a patch to repair him. That first year in high school opened new doors, even if those doors weren’t always the best ones- I burned the hole into him the first time I smoked pot; the ash from the joint fell onto him.
He was buried in his fashionable grave by the time I had lost my virginity and had my first heartbreak at fifteen, when I cried and cried because I really thought we were forever. He had met his end on my closet floor when I got my license, my first job, and my first car. While he was a silent and strong (and not to mention lost) best friend, as I grew older, I grew away from him.
As I sit here, surrounded by brown moving boxes with COLLEGE written on them in messy black sharpie, I contemplate placing him on top of the clothes that fill the box in front of me. Would that be an adult thing to do? What’s even considered adult in college? My mind then drifts towards life after college. Would an adult really keep such a relic from childhood? I know keeping him now is a lost cause- he’s in no condition to hand him down to any god kids I may have or even any kids of my own. He was now nothing more than a shell of a bear- filled with many memories and love instead of white fluff.
As I run my hands down his rough face, a tear drops down my face. I know what I have to do and it breaks my heart. It seems like just yesterday I was dragging him through mud puddles in the spring and jumping into leaves with him in the fall. It seems like mere hours that I was huffing at him and rolling my eyes before tossing him onto his resting place in my closet. I begin to realize how quickly life has passed, knowing that Teddy really wouldn’t fit perfectly in my life like a puzzle piece like he did when I was five.
With one final glance and tight hug, I toss him into a oversized black garbage bag, where he will travel to his final resting place, buried under mounds of trash.
I went with him everywhere: from room to room in our modest brick house, to friends’ houses, and to restaurants where I fed Teddy (I renamed him when the mood struck me, which was often. His first name, Wa, turned into Puppy, which turned into Bear, which morphed into Vinny. He had many more names after that until I was fourteen and I named him Craig) everything I ate. He ate chicken fingers, carrots, pizza, and ice cream and drank my juice. He took adventures under the sea (also known as the washer) every few days. He always came out so soft and warm, wash after wash.
I took him to daycare and to school until the fifth grade, when it was considered uncool to carry such a baby thing around. I tried my hardest to fit in with my peers then, and off Teddy went to sit on my bed until my freshman year of high school. It was more important than ever to fit in with the crowd. I stuffed him in drawer after drawer when I had friends over, desperate to hide everything deemed “uncool”. I yearned to be one of the cool kids and Teddy would not help me achieve this goal. Finally I threw him onto my closet floor, just before I began throwing dirty, discarded clothes, makeup, magazines, and everything else that covered my bedroom’s light green carpet as an attempt to clean my room.
By the time he reached my closet floor, he was tan instead of brown, from so many washings, his fur worn and stained. A button replaced his left eye from when the neighbor’s puppy chewed it off when I was five. The patch on his stomach came shortly before he met his fate on my closet floor. He had ripped from age, and I tried to sew him up myself. Stuffing continued to push its way out of the “scar” on his stomach. It wasn’t until I burned a hole into his stomach that I had my mother sew a patch to repair him. That first year in high school opened new doors, even if those doors weren’t always the best ones- I burned the hole into him the first time I smoked pot; the ash from the joint fell onto him.
He was buried in his fashionable grave by the time I had lost my virginity and had my first heartbreak at fifteen, when I cried and cried because I really thought we were forever. He had met his end on my closet floor when I got my license, my first job, and my first car. While he was a silent and strong (and not to mention lost) best friend, as I grew older, I grew away from him.
As I sit here, surrounded by brown moving boxes with COLLEGE written on them in messy black sharpie, I contemplate placing him on top of the clothes that fill the box in front of me. Would that be an adult thing to do? What’s even considered adult in college? My mind then drifts towards life after college. Would an adult really keep such a relic from childhood? I know keeping him now is a lost cause- he’s in no condition to hand him down to any god kids I may have or even any kids of my own. He was now nothing more than a shell of a bear- filled with many memories and love instead of white fluff.
As I run my hands down his rough face, a tear drops down my face. I know what I have to do and it breaks my heart. It seems like just yesterday I was dragging him through mud puddles in the spring and jumping into leaves with him in the fall. It seems like mere hours that I was huffing at him and rolling my eyes before tossing him onto his resting place in my closet. I begin to realize how quickly life has passed, knowing that Teddy really wouldn’t fit perfectly in my life like a puzzle piece like he did when I was five.
With one final glance and tight hug, I toss him into a oversized black garbage bag, where he will travel to his final resting place, buried under mounds of trash.