Teddy

The Christmas I was 10, I got a great big blue teddy bear. We were in the middle of a move, and the bear was a great confidant. Unfortunately, even from the first, Teddy wasn’t always in the best shape. He had a tendency to fall apart.

Hershey was over a year old when we moved into the house in Omaha. It was a nice size house, giving her a lot of room to hang out in during the day. One day I came home and Teddy was in the living room…bear-guts all over the floor. It was obvious that Hershey had adopted him as her friend. I gathered him up, sewed up all the holes, and found him some clothes to wear (he needed all the help he could get to stay together). I even went out and bought some felt to fashion him a nice set of eyes. Hershey sat beside me the entire time during the repairs. Taking in the new look of her friend.

The next day I came home and Teddy was once again in the living room….bear-guts all over the floor. Obviously, Hershey hadn’t approved of his new eyes. The patches were completely chewed off. We were in a hurry that night to get ready for a dinner party. So, I cleaned up the bear-guts and put Teddy in one of the bedrooms and closed the door.

The next day I walked in the door and the house was a mess. Hershey had pushed the couch up against the dining room set and moved it into the window. The love seat cushion was on the floor (a softball-size bite taken out of it). The blankets were ripped off the bed and strewn about the floor. Hershey had painted a clear picture that she wanted her Bear back! After some emergency stitching (I used the only yard available to patch his eyes), Hershey had her friend back. The whole scene was so comical that it was hard to be mad at her very long.

Teddy stayed Hershey’s pal until we got ready to return from Germany. The fleas were so bad while we lived there, I couldn’t chance bringing him back. I made her a new bear, but it just wasn’t the same.

The entire time they were friends, we never saw Hershey carry him around. He would just be in other locations when we would get home.

Oh yeah, Teddy was about the same size as Hershey.