My Bear
I have a teddy bear.
I've had this bear since I was itty-bitty, but it was a lot bigger back then. (Either that or I was a lot smaller. Let me think about that for a while) The poor thing has a few rips, a whole lot less stuffing, it's faded and it's been through several pairs of button eyes, currently possessing one and a half. It's been sewn up and resewn and basically has had the life squeezed out of it and survived to tell the tales. If teddy bears could talk, anyway.
I never named my bear. It's just my teddy. I tried naming it, but nothing ever stuck.
It's the bear I could not sleep without when I was between the ages of five and ten or even a bit older. I loved that poor, pitiful, flattened thing.I still love it.
It's a definitely smaller than I remember, but some of the comfort it provided during my childhood still resides there. It's comforting in a familiar way. If I can help it, I will never get rid of my bear.
Something faintly reminiscent of my childhood, the unquestioning confidence I had that I would be taken care of no matter what happened, still lingers in the stuffed animal.
It's beat up and floppy, but it's my bear and I love it.