Hunting the Teddy Bear Army

Today’s dog walk took us up our street and down memory lane. As the dog and I peered into our neighbours’ front windows, we witnessed the bright posters and feel-good messages that are meant to keep spirits up and to distract kids from the fear of COVID-19.

Our next-door-neighbour, for example, has hoisted a massive white bear into the front window. Its chubby, cheery ursine face is a welcome sight for kids passing by in strollers or riding their shiny spring trikes alongside their parents. This teddy-bear initiative is based on a kids’ book called We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. The idea is that kids will hope to spot bears while they’re taking a break from being stuck inside their houses.

On the sighting of our third bear, I smiled. Bittersweet. A memory. God, my Mom would be the biggest hero right now. She’d been at the front of the line to display her plush bears in the window, no doubt making kids throughout the city thrilled with their augmented bear count.

Oh, my Mom had every stuffed bear you could imagine.

Personally, I had given up teddy bears and plush animals when I was about 12, and I considered her attraction to them infantile. I figured she was likely replaying some unfulfilled childhood need. She was, after all, an in-the-middle child in a family of nine, and it was during the Depression, so perhaps teddy bears were at a premium and she lost out. However, the collection secretly disgusted me. I thought they were a stupid waste of time and money and a forest’s worth of dust collectors.

My father would buy my Mom anything she wanted, so the bear collection grew to, I’m estimating, forty or so. They lined the back of the chesterfield; they were on their bed and scattered throughout other rooms. They hung on walls and from lamps. They were even in the bathroom—of course, they matched the princess-perfect retro purple tiles and toilet. Those bears never shit in the woods.

For Valentine’s Day, a white plushy would appear, holding a satin heart and a carnation. For Easter, a mauve or pale-yellow bunny plush accompanied her Easter card. When my parents moved from their house to an apartment, I thought for sure some of those bears would be adopted out. But no. Each one resumed its place in the new abode. The small purple bear still hangs in the apartment bath, although my Mom’s been gone five years and my Dad is not a collector.

My brother and I used to tease her relentlessly about her bevy of bears. We’d prank her by turning them all on their heads. We’d hide them or put them in compromising positions. We tormented her, and she good-naturedly accepted it. Over time, her bear collecting became her stalwart, silent army; the grandchildren were discouraged from playing with them. To us, they were mute troops standing ready to go to war at any moment.

If my Mom were here today, she’d be 93; gosh, those bears…what memories…what fun…what love. How I miss her eccentricities. I’m growing more like her, and it’s startling how much I’m starting to take on her facial expressions.

I miss my Mom.

I wonder what she’d do during this pandemic. My Dad thinks she’d be a nervous wreck. I dare to disagree; I think she’d be setting up her ursine troops, trying to give every kid in the world something to smile about. Oh yeah, she’d be the leader of the pack.

And this kid? Her kid? Me? Yep, I’m smiling. With a bittersweet tear in my eye. She’s five years gone, and I still want to give her one more hug. Well…after this is all over, anyway. Meanwhile, I’m gonna keep looking for bears.