Bernie Tivanticus, un-Teddy Bear

It almost isn’t fair to call him a teddy bear. Actually, calling Bernie a teddy bear is something like taking a glance at the Great Wall of China and saying, “Nice fence.”

As I fondle this one of my oldest, most special friends, my stuffed bear Bernie, I remember days when I fondled him with much smaller hands. I remember wandering around the house with Bernie comfortably settled over my shoulder or on top of my head—other teddy bears can’t do that—and I remember life as it was when Bernie first came to me, when I was a little girl growing up in southern California. I can still hear the song of the waves in the morning and the crunch of salt under my sandals, and I remember the way the sun used to plunge into the ocean in the evenings with a shower of glittering diamonds that hurt my eyes when I looked at them. I remember the less beautiful parts, too—things like feeling awkward and insecure and in-between and immature—but Bernie never minded those things. He’d keep sitting on my shoulder, calm and comfortable as ever, as kind as if I were one of those perfect girls my age in my treasured American Girl catalogues.

Bernie’s lived a long life, and a colorful one, since those first days at the beach so long ago. When I grew a little older and (in my eyes then) quite a bit more clever, the space beneath my bed became the animal kingdom of Varamath, where all my stuffed animals resided in orderly society despite the dastardly felons who at times attempted to disrupt the peace. (An old, almost unwanted Christmas teddy bear and a cheap stuffed bulldog fair prize were the criminals, if I remember correctly.) None other than Bernie held the position captain of the queen’s guard. He valiantly defended the safety of the queen and the kingdom of Varamath on the whole against villainous bears and bulldogs alike; and in fact, he was so esteemed in that country that he signed the honorable Constitution that I wrote, and the Amendment that came after it. His name at that time temporarily became Tivanticus. I considered myself extremely clever.

Now years have gone by, and Varamath is gone forever (though I still have that ridiculous “Constitution”). My home is no longer minutes from the sparkling Ventura waves. I am an adult. I have grown up and away and out of a good deal that I once held dear—and yet Bernie stays with me. He has survived rakings through my stuffed animal collection for multiple de-junkings and deep cleans and a life-shaking move from California to Texas, and he is not leaving me anytime soon if I can help it. My excuse is that I’m keeping him for my future children, but even I don’t believe that when I say it. I’m keeping Bernie for me, because Bernie is mine and always will be mine.

At nineteen years, am I too old to be unable to endure parting with a stuffed bear? Arguably so. I am probably also too old to keep a stuffed bear in a special place in my closet where he can always look at me and I can always look back at him for a friendly wink, and I am most definitely far too old to bring a stuffed bear onto a university campus to show my friends right after I read them a paper I wrote about him.

But I don’t care. Bernie never was just a teddy bear anyway.

Epilogue

For those of you not in my Writing and Publishing Nonfiction class (ah yes, my multitudes of readers!), this is a very slightly tweaked version of a paper I wrote for the said class, according to a writing prompt calling for a paper about any object that had significance to the student. The day the paper was due, I really did have Bernie on campus with me, stuffed inside my purse; and when I finished my turn reading my paper aloud to the class, I took him out and showed him off. The others in the classroom were generous enough to say awww and laugh with me. Hats off to them!

One final note: please don’t anybody judge me for my un-teddy bear. It is my personal belief (and here I know I’m treading dangerous waters as a nineteen-year-old, but I think most will agree) that we all have our sentimental little memories, whatever form they may take. It took a prompt for a nonfiction paper to push me to reveal mine.

What’s your Bernie?