There’s a teddy bear that sits on my bed. At 46 years old, its probably not apropos, but regardless, it is there. It is there to serve as a reminder for me. A reminder of love. When I was going through an extremely painful time in my life, I took my youngest son Matthew to a local summer festival. It was a warm June evening, and Matthew was 12 at the time.
The streets were crowded with people. Families, teenagers, and children were scrambling to ride every ride. The smell of cotton candy and fresh popped popcorn filled the air. Crowds gathered to hear local bands, buy hotdogs and soda, and enjoy the fresh warm air of early summer in the Midwest. All in all, it was a perfect summer evening.
But all I saw that night were couples. Couples in love. Men with their arms wrapped around their women, sharing a bite to eat, holding hands as they listened to the music play. Couples waiting in line to ride the Ferris wheel, or the tilt a whirl. And seeing those couples so happy and in love brought an even greater loneliness to my heart. It was all I could do not to cry. I swallowed back the tears, hoping that Matthew was enjoying himself enough to be oblivious to my pain.
I felt cheated that evening. Cheated out of love. Cheated out of the security and comfort that being in a relationship brought. Cheated out of having the life I had always dreamed about. Cheated out of having a wonderful husband and father for my children. And I felt so very very alone.
“Snap out of it Debbie! Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” my inner voice kept telling me. But when your heart is breaking, there is no rationalizing with it. It must feel the pain. It must mourn the loss, before it can heal.
There were of course that night, many carnival games to play. Weathered gents calling out for us to knock down the bottles and win a prize, pick out the right rubber ducky with the lucky marking on its belly, and so on. I had never really enjoyed spending money on trying to win a cheaply sown stuffed animal, but Matthew was persistent, begging for a chance to win a prize.
“Please Mom”, he begged. “I know I can do it! Let me try!” “Fine Matthew”, I said. “Knock yourself out!” Anything to keep him happy and get through this evening.
The first attempt brought us only a loss of the dollar I had spent. “One more time Mom, pleeease!” Matthew begged. “Wouldn’t you rather go on a ride?” I asked. “No Mom, please. I know I can do it this time!” Another dollar spent. Another dollar lost. “Okay Matthew, enough. Let’s move on.”
Once more Matthew begged to try. “This time Mom. Please! I just know this time I will win. I promise! Just one more try. Please Mom!” Already feeling low, I relented and gave him the money. And just like he promised, this time Matthew won. The pride glowed in my son’s eyes as he picked out just the right prize. And just and I was ready to walk away from that little booth, Matthew turned to me and presented me with the most beautiful yellow teddy bear that I had ever seen. I looked up to see such a pure beautiful love reflected in his eyes, that I could not help but cry and hold him and the teddy bear close to my heart. Matthew knew all along how sad and lonely I had been feeling. And in his 12 year old heart, he wanted to ease my pain in whatever way he could.
So from that day on until the day I die, that beautiful soft yellow teddy bear will always hold a special place in my life. It will always represent to me the beauty of true love. We often forget, at least I do, that love surrounds us each and every day. We search for a particular kind of love, one that we feel we are missing out on, only to miss out on the real love that is right in front of us. The love of our children. The love of a friend. The love of a sibling or a parent. So that teddy bear that sits on my bed, that I look at each and every morning, is my reminder every single day, to be thankful for the love that is in my life. I know now what real love is all about. It is present each and every day. If only we are aware enough to see it.
And yes, I still would like to have that special someone to share the rest of my life with. I know that I will meet him when the time is right. But right now, right this very moment, I have 5 very special someones to share my life with. I am blessed. And I am loved. And I am grateful for that. Each and every day.
Written by Debbie Brown
This made me cry. I wish there was more literature out there so I wouldn’t feel like the only one out there that is barely keeping my head above water,
I’m not a single mother but I would like any feedback. It all ties together just bear with me…wow how could I not use that
I am a 26 year old male who sleeps with both a security blanket and a teddy bear. With that said I would like to state that I even still tell my teddy how much I love him from time to time(I grew up an only child) but I don’t absolutely need either of them to sleep but it sure helps because I’m a self diagnosed insomniac. My closest friends don’t know I sleep with either and that is a dark fear of mine to be ridiculed over something I hold so dear to my heart. I only shared my secret with my girlfriends over the years and I have found in every relationship I’ve been in it has shown the affectionate side of me when I surprise the girl with my blanket and teddy. I am a pretty intimidating person to meet, usually having an unreadable expression and give off an aura of @$$HOLE unless I get a good gut feeling about your personality otherwise trust has to earned which almost never happens.
So thats the short profile of who I am, next comes my teenage years which I learned more about life than most people do in their own life. Running “hard” drugs with certain family at such a critical stage in self-development has obviously effected who I am, seeing dope heads smoking in front of their children, seeing how skinny the kids are because the junkies always feed their habit. Realizing that no matter how much money you came up on it never made those memories any better. I learned life isn’t always sunny, its rarely sunny at best. I could see corruption in everything, the rose tinted shades of innocense ripped and smashed by unseen hands. I lost the ability to see the good that was there because I was so focused on hating the bad.
All this I was well aware of at age 14. When I got into junior high I seperated myself from just about everyone and this is when I started to shut everyone out even my parents who always loved me dearly and I wasn’t on drugs. The brutal slam into the dark reality that is life just made me want to disappear entirely. I was still a fantastic student up until sophmore year when I got into the drugs. My mind slipping faster than my grades I couldn’t get over how blind my fellow pupils were. How can you be caught up in drama that governs whos whos and why we all should hate Jane Doe for whatever. It eventually became a stream of white noise that produced wretched headaches. This system of an education institution wouldn’t work for me. I never expressed any of these ideas but my face and silent stare was enough to have my teachers start sending me to the school counselors, bad move on their part. I would rip apart every angle they tried to get me to talk about my feelings, I rather enjoyed it and setup a weekly schedule where I would go see my counselor.
I managed to squeak by and get my diploma, using the counselors to get out of a lot of assignments. I was always a skinny kid but I could tell I was shrinking, my cheeks sinking in and my ribcage protruding. So young why was I doing this to myself I asked my Teddy one morning, him staring back at me with his ever loving smile just made something in me snap and I cried from morning until weeping slumber. The next morning I quit cold turkey, I didn’t even have withdrawls or second thoughts. I started focusing and trying to figure out what to do with my life. Got back into all my athletics and eating right, socializing a little more and trying to connect with my family more. I was fairly happy inside, started maturing into a man. Found a true love in motorcycles and had friends that followed my lead. I found a true passion in riding and so did my best friend, we wanted to be mechanics and had it all planned out. He killed himself on his sportbike not long after.
That was in 2009 and its 2012 now. The bottle, the hundreds of bottles, thousands of cans of beer and endless nightmares. I ruined the relationship with my soon to be wife. I thought I had felt the darkest feelings life had to throw at me but I never experienced someone close to me die. Don’t get me wrong I have had great experiences and laughs since he died but I believe Rambo said it best, “You just don’t turn it off”.
If your still reading you have to be thinking how did this guy just sum up his life in this blog about security blankets? I didn’t plan going this deep into it all, looks like when you bottle up everything in life and don’t want to burden the ones you love, you can always talk to your teddy bear and he will always have a comforting smile and hug. Live in the dark for most of your life and you get use to the dark places and my blankey is my camoflauge when in the abyss. The little bit of comfort I allowed myself to have was always my bear and blanket, calming me down so I didn’t take the easy way out. So the question arises out of the obvious fact I have some deep problems, would I have managed better if I learned to let them go earlier in life or did holding on to them keep my head above water for this long??
I have been doing a lot better FYI Thanks for Your Time….