Selected Snpd - Day 10

20100707 Wed

Close up:

Though it might be difficult to tell, this is the face of authentic, vivid, uncomplicated, artless, ingenuous, unfeigned, (... I need every one of these adjectives, because I really mean this ...) profound love. He rarely went by much more creative of a name than Teddy Bear, but he never needed to. By far my favorite, he remains in a central space on the bookshelf, beside other beloved bears and rabbits and stuffed smurfs, but he is the only one to whom I still sometimes reach out to squeeze his stuffingless paw, pat his unfurry ear, or wish good night in my thoughts.

After twenty-five years of hugs, cubby holes, fevers and flues, all-nighters, stitches (for him, not for me; I remain stitches-free), machine washings that turned into hand-washings for fear of disintegration, coming along tucked under-chin to gymnastics practices, hours propped on the car hood and tilted back so he wouldn't miss the solid rocket booster separation, waiting bright and early in the van's back seat for the family to come get this show on the road, nights in the homes of kind adults who recognized him and sheltered him until his owner (or his owner's parents!) remembered where she had left him, listening to stories by a child too young to write them down, traveling home parcel post from hotels, sleeping in pillow forts, acting in puppet plays, stand-ins for stop-animation videos, and overall being around whenever he was needed for a hug or for a cry or for a scavenger hunt or for throwing at my brothers ("Now give him back, please!") ... even if he is only a stuffed toy, Teddy Bear will always have a place in my heart.

Thanks, Kim, for once upon a time spending your hard-earned "funny money" to buy your little sister a brown, fluffy bear.