Teddy Bear

By Zachary Furr

 

If this tale breaks your heart, then let it be so…

 

My soul cries out for what has been lost,

My wife cries for what has been done,

I cry for what has happened,

We mourn together.

 

For we have lost what we had been planning for many months, a child that was to be ours. A life that was to be entrusted to us. The first born, the promised one, the life that was to be the culmination of all of our experiences together. When two become one.

 

I held my son in my hands a week prior to the tears.

I held my wife’s hand for the first time three years prior,

I asked her to marry me two years prior,

We began trying six months after the wedding,

Three months for her,

Three months for me,

We enjoyed the time,

We enjoyed the life,

 

Six pounds, nine ounces,

The new life in my hands felt like it had the years of life before it,

I felt the small life in my hands and my heart soared for my son,

His tiny body was one that I felt joy at holding,

My life felt complete,

My wife felt the same and we rejoiced in the moment.

 

We took him home, We had a nursery all prepared complete with rocking chair, crib and toys. He ate and pooped for the first week. It took some getting too waking up in the wee hours of the morning. Three, six, and nine. Three hours for every living human in the home.

 

But you have forgotten the point of this tale by now,

I am sorry,

For the next part of the story brings me nothing but grief,

It is still hard for me.

Life is moving by,

We have become stagnant,

 

    The morning of the ninth day is the hardest for us by far. I wake up on instinct at 2:56 a.m.. Groggily, I make my way to the kitchen, I grab my son’s meal and get to his room. and walk into silence. Every morning for the past eight days my son has awoken at three. And now that I was half-sleep, I simply stroked his back, and that is when I realized that something was terribly wrong. He was cold, stiff and not breathing. I awakened fully to try and wake up my son. I shook him gently but vigorously.

He lay still.  

I called to my wife and my voice was frantic and panicked. I picked up my son and he still did not move. My wife came in to see what had happen, and saw me holding the lifeless body of my son. She saw that he did not move and immediately took him to try and wake him. I ran out of the room to get my phone to call 911.

The Fire Department and an Ambulance came in six minutes. I held my wife while these professionals examined our son.

They told us what we had already knew. SIDS, or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. The fireman, a big burly man, told us cried as he did so. The paramedics took my son and my wife to the hospital and I followed in my car.

 

The hospital that we had visited just a little over a week ago,

The hospital that we had left with joy,

We now returned in sorrow,

We visited the nursery the week before,

Now we were escorted to the morgue.

My wife was hysterical as we were allowed to hold our son one last time.

Three hours were spent with the lost life.

 

    Our parents came into town to see our son for the first and last time. We were still in mourning, and they understood. They gave us the space we needed and helped out with the chores, as we had let the house go.

    The cremation was in three days and we just had the hardest time leading up to it. We signed a certificate of death less than a month after we signed the birth certificate. I was a wreck and had the hardest time putting pen to paper.

    The time for ‘burial’ came and everyone was solmen in the crowd of friends and family.  I tried to put on a brave face face in front of everyone,, but I could feel the tears stream down my face. A benediction was given by a priest:

 

I chose you before I gave you life, and before you were born I selected you… (Jeremiah 1:5)
Holy God, we are gathered here in grief to honour this child who was not able to
be brought to the fullness of life we hoped and intended for him. We seek the comfort and knowledge of your love as given to us in Holy Scripture, in the gift of your child Jesus who dwelt and died among us, and in your presence with us, as we bless him, commend him to your care.

 

    I stop listening after that and both my wife and I completely broke down and lost it. There were none that were able to console us. We both went outside and went home leaving our son yet again

    Mom came to us after the service. She had brought something with her this time, a brown teddy bear that had a navy blue ribbon around its neck. She said that she had meant it for my son, and in a way it really was meant for him still.

I gripped the bear in my arms and felt a small little box amongst the stuffing. I unzipped the back of the bear and inside of the stuffing was a small little locked box with my son’s name on it.

I went back to the nursery to find my wife sitting in the rocking chair finding comfort in a pile of blankets tears continued to run down her cheeks. I knelt down beside her and gave her the bear and told her the significance of the bear. She dropped the blankets and accepted the bear with reverence.

After the period of mourning was over, the bear took its rightful place on a high shelf in the Nursery.

 

Nine Months have passed,

Three for every member of the family,

My wife is expecting again,

We are reminded every time we look into the nursery,

Of the joy we felt,

And of the sorrow that followed,

And that teddy bear with his blue ribbon is shown plenty of love.