There is no love so deep
As a child’s devotion to her teddy bear.
Dr. Spock

 

When my niece Elizabeth had her baby, I forced myself to part with my very first love. His name was Brucie and he wasn’t a knight in shining armor, nor was he the man of my dreams. He was my teddy bear; the now-battered toy that comforted me through the rocky path of childhood.

The stuffed animal I sent to Elizabeth’s little daughter was sixty-five years old. He bore no resemblance to the soft, fat beauties I see at toy stores today. His fur was rough as sandpaper and his arms and legs danced like Bo Jangles when I shook him. I held the toy I was sending away and felt once more the solace he always offered when I clutched his then solid body to my heart, my thumb in my mouth and tears welling in my eyes. His silence was all I had to smother the cacophony of adult voices shrilling orders I didn’t understand.

The Brucie was neither beautiful nor soft. He was balded from my caresses; his mouth tattered from my kisses and his pink tongue torn away. Suddenly, as I wrapped him in tissue paper I was a three-year old child once more, dragging my only friend behind me, to help me brave a gigantic world. After Mama tucked me into my crib, I told him fantastic stories no one else needed to believe; the same stories I now write in my books, shaped for adults to help them remember when they, too needed a silent friend who listened.

I still remember the day my mother gave him to me. My Aunt Sally had just had a baby and I too wanted a brother or sister to live at our house. “Where did Aunt Sally buy her baby? I asked. “Could we get one like it for me?”

Mama bundled me into my navy blue coat and tied a white velvet bonnet under my chin. “She didn’t buy him,” she said. “Aunt Sally brought him from heaven. Now he’s at Mercy Hospital; the same place you were born.”

“Did you buy me in heaven, too?” I asked.

My mother frowned. ”Not exactly,” she said.

The two of us walked into the hospital and took an elevator to the sixth floor. We entered a room filled with flowers. My Aunt Sally was sitting up in the bed holding a blue blanket filled with something egg shaped. “What’s in there?” I asked my mother and she laughed.

“That’s Brucie!” she said. “Sandy’s new brother. Do you want to see him?”

She lifted me up and my Aunt Sally pulled aside the blanket so I could see Bruce’s face. His skin looked golden as fresh peaches and he smelled like sweet honeysuckle. His tiny head was covered with soft blond fuzz that felt like little feathers when I touched it. He gurgled and smiled and I fell in love. “Oh he is so adorable!” I said. ”Can I take him home?”

My mother laughed. “Of course you can’t,” she said. “He belongs to Aunt Sally. “

I was very quiet when we left the hospital and that night when I closed my eyes, I put my thumb in my mouth and let my tears drip down my cheeks. ”Please let me have my own Brucie,” I whispered to the good fairy that lived in my heart. “I would never ever stop loving him.”

When my mother gave me my birthday gift a month later, I said, ”Did you buy me a Brucie?”

“Open it and see,” she said.

I tore off the ribbons and paper and saw was a fuzzy brown toy animal with a black nose and a pink tongue. “That isn’t Brucie.” I said

“That is a Teddy Bear,” said my mother. “Just like the one in the song about the picnic and he is all yours. What would you like to name him?”

“BRUCIE,” I said. “And I will love him forever.”

Children these days have very elaborate, expensive toys that talk and wet their diapers. Their stuffed animals are soft as silk and every color in the rainbow. I see them in the store windows and I know they are more aesthetic than my Brucie ever was. And yet, there was a special magic about my first love for me. He wasn’t very fancy and neither was I. I guess that’s why we understood each other.

I placed him in his cardboard box and kissed the bald spot between his ears. “It’s time for you to comfort another tiny soul, Brucie,” I said and, as I taped the box shut, I could swear he winked at me.

 

Everyone knows you are never too old
To love a teddy bear.
Sigmund Freud’s mother