Bears for a New Generation

Before I discovered coffee - that is to say, in my eary childhood - my obsession was with teddy bears, and I owned somewhere between 13 and 17 of them (I knew the precise number, at that age).  As was the convention in our house, each teddy bear had a name beginning with the title Baby - the first two were Baby Bobby and Baby Ben.  Once we became Orthodox, the new arrivals started having names like Baby Constantine.

A few of these bears survive into the current century, and they have lived in plastic (yes, "garbage") bags in our basement.  But Daniel and Ian have been acutely aware of them for a long time, especially with their existing propensity for scavenge hunting, otherwise known as "shopping," for toys in the basement.  (We have many toys which would be described, in software parlance, as being "deprecated":  they're not in the "recycle bin," but they'e also not in current use...

One evening a few weeks ago, Daniel begged me to let him go to the basement for such a shopping spree. I humored him, but this visit was different:  rather than just gathering his own toys, he pleaded with me to let him take up some teddy bears.  Personally, I would love for them to have my teddy bears, but because these bears are something like 40 years old, and look the part, I'm quite sure that Amy wouldn't like to have them living upstairs and being held/used/played with, by our children.  We have all kinds of allergies and sensitivities even without the 40-year-accumulation factor.

But for whatever reason, I relented, with the huge caveat that Mommy will probably make the bears go downstairs.  That hasn't happened yet, but a lot of other things have. To sum it up, the bears have become the passion of a new generation.  The children worked out a system where each one got their own bear.  Ian got the celebrated red-and-white Baby Constantine.  He asked my permission to call him simply "Constantine," which I granted.  After all, B.C. is several decades Ian's senior.  Daniel got a big yellow one with a saucy face, as my Great-Aunt Mildred pointed out upon his arrival back in the early 70's - and I see now that she was completely correct. I couldn't remember his name, but Ian discovered a bit of forensics - a broken-up piece of masking tape on the stomach which, as Ian looked more closely, he correctly deciphered as Baby Mark.  We had just started going to a Saint Mark's Church at that point, so I'm sure that's what I had in mind with that bear's name.  And they gave Madeleine a big - nearly-as-big-as-her - brown bear - clearly rather feminine, although I was in denial back then - with a multi-pastel-colored checkered kerchief around his/her neck and eyes which are actually half-closed.  I couldn't remember this one's name, but Ian renamed her - I think we're out in the open about "her", now - "Sleepy," and now she belongs to Madeleine.

What's really moving is the eagerness with which the children have incorporated their new/old bears into their lives.  Ian and Daniel often take them to bed with them, walk around with them, and set them up in various positions - they're big bears, so you can put them in human-like positions in chairs, at tables, wearing hats, etc.  Madeleine's lives in her room.

I think they're very grateful - even touched - that I let them have "my" teddy bears, and they perhaps consider it something of an honor to inherit them and play with them.  For me, it's really something to see Teddy Bears from the Nixon Administration back in circulation, and even in vogue, in this very modern Age of Obama.   And I like to see something that was mine as a child being enjoyed by a very new, very beloved generation of children. I've explained to Ian that what's mine is theirs, and I think he really appreciates that sense of belonging.  And I must say, I never imagine that those dusty old bears in the basement would make a new crop of children so happy.

(March/April, 2012)