Old bear of mine..................................

She picks up that old stuffed bear and holds it in her arms, much like a child that has long passed in time.
Though he is ratty and torn, dry and faded, her memories of him make her feel young. Those once small stitches that held each piece together now are showing their weight and the stress of time. Must like the old woman that clutches him in her arms, for it had been too long. The paint on his nose has long peeled away and his cyclops face still holds a half-bitten ear. However, to her, he is that warm fuzzy. A part of her childhood, that had not faded away. She still takes a needle she cannot see and threads it with love, sewing the stuffing back in where the skin no longer covers, much like life always in need of repair. He never cries or wines never says that it hurts, he just stays still in her shaking old hands as she mend him together for another hug to come. While she holds him, she thinks how long it has been since they have said hello. She touches him, running her fingers across his thinned out fur, she knows he is older and weaker much like her. She sits down on the side of the bed holding him in her arms and remembers the years he sat there alone, waiting her return. For it was he who shared her long slumbering nights. The teenage years of secrets and tears, he heard every word. When she became a bride, the bear took his place in history like a shelved book. The babies came and went…the bear was much too old and dusty to be with them. No one noticed his arm torn from the weight of itself. After the grandchildren, the women had time, so she would get the bear down and fix his torn arm then thank him for all the memories they had shared together. He is special now even more than before, that same little child that lived in the heart of the old woman has loved him for almost sixty years. She stands up and places him on her side of the bed. The bear now rest his head on her pillow, proud as before, she walks away with a smile and turns off the light. But for a moment, she wondered who would take watch when she is no longer here. Then it came to her, by then we will be antiques she thought, I will pass on and you will stay. You will be worth more to my loved ones because I loved you and you will take your place in history once more. If only you could talk she thought, the stories you could tell old bear of mine. So the old bear came down from the book shelve and sits in the sunroom on a stuffed chair. There the old woman can see him as she walk by and remembers that he has always been in her life for as long as she could remember. He has a quite loved place in her home and in her heart; she will pick him up from time to time and smell his age, touch his fur and carefully replace him in his seat of honor. Oh bear of mine, now you are too old to play with the grandchildren and you are too frail to be raked across the room as so many years before. But sometimes when no one is looking the old woman will pick up the bear and hold hi, very tight while she walks to her room. She will lay on her bed for a small nap and hold her teddy bear with the heart of a child.