Gloria ~ May 13

 

TEDDY   

 

Brought a lot of stuff to Ohio. Winter things…summer things…toilet articles and pills and other assorted lady stuff…notes for my book…script to my show…chargers and plugs for various items that need a boost to get them to work…pens, lots of pens although mostly I type since my writing has descended  into an incomprehensible scrawl……little and big notebooks…my phone my computer… and one little Teddy Bear.  

 

I’m not and never have been a Teddy sort of female. Or even a doll collector…was never a girly girl. Just wanted to  sit on my bed in my tiny room... and read.

 

So this  particular Teddy is not actually mine. It was a gift for my mother, sort of a house warming (actually a room warming) gift. 

 

Back up a bit,,,she was in her  90’s…my father long past my brother gone and only the two of us left. Myself in NYC and my mother in an apartment in Reinbeck  about an hour train ride away. I made sure she had Meals On Wheels because I wanted someone to look in on her at least once a day. She would bring the delivery ladies inside to show them my father’s sculptures and my designs and tell them about my brother the lawyer to show them that a deaf woman had raised smart children and had a talented husband. 

 

Checking up on her I realised that she wasn’t really eating that food any more…and was not fully able to live alone. I gave her the option of live in help (which I knew she would refuse) or moving to an assisted living facility I had found which I thought would be perfect for her. It was a beautiful house that offered personal care and a private room. 

 

The day we moved she was at her worst. Cranky and angry and not pleased with anything and generally awful. By the end of it all I was on my very last inch of nerve and then I remembered her gift.  I was so pissed off I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to offer it  but I just took a chance.

 

And it changed everything. I had never seen her so delighted with anything I ever gave her. She suddenly became the secret self that she always kept hidden…that once in a while I would see in short glimpses.

 

How was I to know that she never in her life had ever had anything remotely like that damn little bear. 

 

How was I to know she had  waited  95 years for that soft little stuffed toy with a ribbon around his neck and whiskers and little outstretched paws. 

 

I keep it with me now as a reminder to be patient. To think twice. To do the loving thing in spite of circumstances that might call for contentious behaviour and a sharp word. 

 

I look at him…we look at each other...and I remember…