Looking for a teddy bear

 I want a teddy bear.  I asked for one for my Birthday last month but no bear arrived.  I think it is because of my specific request regarding a teddy bear that is keeping it from coming to me.  I am a one teddy woman.  I found my first teddy on a high shelf at the Rexall Drug store in Lakewood.  When my mom got it down for me to see I hugged him and knew he was my bear.  Just the right size so his head rested over my shoulder.  A firm, almost weighted, butt that I could cup close to me.   He was dark honey brown.  His fur was not really long and fluffy, or too short and stiff.  He had floppy arms and legs, no fancy articulation for my bear.  He had a real bear expression with kind eyes that seemed to be able to look right into the heart of my little 4-year-old self.   He was a bear of substance and worth. 

Tim arrived that Christmas and I never let him go.  I slept with him, told him all my secrets, he was the perfect companion.  When I was older I went to summer camp.  No stuffed animals were allowed at camp. So my Mom sewed Tim inside a pillowcase and he became a very suspicious looking bumpy pillow.  I had Tim on my bed until we moved from our farm about 13 years ago. 

We had sold the farm, found a new condo closer to town and Chuck and I had pretty much gone through everything in the barn and house before I began having severe abdominal pain and ended up having surgery and a long hospitalization.  The date for the move were already set, the house sold and our friends and family all came to the rescue and helped Chuck pack up the rest of our stuff and move into the condo.  In some box, somewhere was Tim.  I am still looking for him, thinking that certain box is still safely packed and he will return.
I keep thinking I could buy a bear that was like Tim, many have come close, but I have not found him yet.  
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Did I say this blog post was about finding a bear?  I meant to say my little brother died.  My little brother who had recently married and adopted his wife’s three grandchildren, walked into the woods and put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.  The reasons are dark and deep, secrets that could no longer be kept, darkness that he somehow kept buried inside until it became too much. 
He was the kind of man who always carried his gun and believed in his right to do so.  So that gun was right there with him in his time of overwhelming emotional pain, so easy to reach down and have a solution right there, so final. 

I continue on with my own disease which will eventually end my life.  Living each day to the fullest, I have no concept of what it would be like to want to end it.  I also do not know the depth of my brother’s pain and my story is very different than his.  But I do understand how precious life is and what demons he was dealing with that caused him to leave in this way.

He loved his family, rescued horses, loved trail riding and jeeps.  He was a big bear of a man, a quiet guy with sparkly eyes that seemed to look right into your heart. 

It is after midnight and I just woke up my dear husband to go out to the kitchen and bring me some rice pudding.    In grief we all search for something to fill the giant hole that cannot be filled. So tonight I am looking for my lost bear and eating pudding.  If I allow myself to dig a bit deeper, I realize I am looking for my lost brother too.  My bear of a brother, a man of substance and worth is gone.  

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