Silly Little Bears

About six weeks ago I lost Nolan's teddy bear.  We went down to Tucson and somehow it did not make it back home.  I looked in all the places I could imagine it would have been left but no.  It simply disappeared.  Nolan loved this bear.  He used to crawl with it.  He figured out how to move his legs so that he could crawl and not end up crawling on it.  He used to grab it by the ears and mush it in his face.  When he went to sleep at night it tucked it under his belly and slept on top of it.  He loved this bear.

But, if it is possible, I loved it more.  I got this bear as a gift shortly after I found out I was pregnant.  It was a gift from a very good from of mine.  As soon as I learned I was having identical twins my friend bought another one.  Now my identical twins would have identical teddy bears.  After I learned about the possibility of TTTS, the diagnosis, the procedures and hospitalization these two bears grew to mean even more to me.  They became the symbols of my little boys fighting for their lives.  I slept with them in my arms every night to hold them close and keep them safe.  I would hold them when I spoke to my boys or would go into meditation about the boys. When I flew to Houston for the laser surgery the bears came with me and spent the night with me in the hospital.  After my water broke and I was hospitalized until I had the boys these silly little bears were with me, in my bed the entire time and did not leave my side until I put one of them in each boy's nicu room.  There they stayed.  Placed on a shelf to look down on the isolette, they watched over their little boy. When Eli died his bear moved to Nolan's room and was placed on a different shelf with Eli's other things.  Every night I spent in Nolan's nicu room was spent with Eli's blanket and teddy bear in my arms. Now, Eli's bear and some of his other things are in Nolan's room in a cabinet.  These silly little bears were symbols of my boys and gave me something to hold when I was filled with such fear and then such grief.  Those two little bears were a saving grace for me through it all and now they have been separated.

Since then I have bought a couple of different stuffed animal options for Nolan but nothing has stuck so far.  I got two more bears from the same company as the first bears.  Yes, two, in this case it was too hard to think of only buying one of these bears. I still don't know what I will do with two, maybe keep one as a back up. Of course they changed how the bear looks, which made me cry.  Nolan, my sunshine and happiness boy, is no worse for wear with the loss of his teddy bear but it still brings me to tears.