Goodbye to a Real One
This is a confession to me from my mother. So….many years ago I was sat round the dinner table with my mom and she broke down in laughter, tears and all, and told me she had something to tell me, and she couldn’t live with the lie anymore. When I was a little girl, I used to have a child-sized bear, originally named Big Bear, who lived under my bed to protect me from monsters.
I loved this bear. He was my protector and my best friend. My mom, however, HATED this bear. In her mind, he was one of those cheap bears you can win at the fairground stuffed full of straw, but to me he was perfect. When I was eight years old we moved house, and during this move, Big Bear went missing…believed to have been stolen.
My parents assured me that they had contacted the authorities and they were on the case. Eventually time passed and I forgot about Big Bear and life moved on. Coincidentally, at the same time of Big Bear’s mysterious disappearances, I was in my school play Teddy Bears’ Tea Party, and my role was “teddy bear number two.” My costume was amazing. It was a hand-made, full zip-up teddy bear costume, complete with a cute little bonnet with pink bow.
I was the cutest teddy bear in the whole show, confirmed by my grandparents. Now you’ve probably guessed the terrible secret that my mother has carried with her all these years. My amazingly cute teddy bear costume WAS BIG BEAR. She had destroyed him, pulled out his insides, and cut off his head. She then cut off his face, attached a bow to his head and made me wear his cold…very cute and fluffy teddy bear skin.
I think she finally caved and confessed because she could no longer live with the guilt. I was and still am traumatized. RIP Big Bear. RIP.