It was a childhood toy, a small bear so loved and so worn, bought long ago by your mother, my wife.
You were too young then, too young to see how she fretted over this bear while standing outside the toy store, a bundled ball of pride and anxiousness, wanting to find the perfect bear for you, our son.
Two buttons stitched for eyes and a quiet smile of looped cotton, a simple toy filled with kindness, one blessed with your mother’s love.
It wasn’t much–things like this never are, objects so seldom are remembered for their cost but instead become intertwined with the memory of life, memories that like stained glass seem to grow all the more fragile as they age but remain uniquely resplendent, no matter how much they fade: a portrait forever captured in stillness.
He was almost as tall as you were on that day, your two tiny eyelids closed against the brightness of the afternoon sun, an arm reaching out no bigger than a sapling’s branch; you hugged the bear that day, and your mother and had never known a happiness so encompasing.
I still feel like I can hold that moment in my hands, that chipped fragment of glass that may cut if I hold it too tightly.
You grew, with small steps at first and then life became all too fast as you skipped down the hall of our home on unsure legs, all the while dragging Ted behind you; I think you named him Ted, I can’t remember everything from those days but even if we hinted his name to you it didn’t matter, his name was Ted and he lived for adventure.
Thing’s change though; curely, they so seldom stay the same.
On that late Autumn day we went to the river, you me, and Ted.
A grey sky has never covered the world so totally as it did upon that day, rain that occasionally spat down against the concrete walkway of the river’s edge held no real purchase, but gave the path a gloss covered sheen and caused the fallen leaves to cling to our boots as we walked slowly along the bank.
We’d spent so many days alongside this river, the four of us.
…
I’d built a boat-
-a simple one of well lacquered wood and with a wide base so it wouldn’t tip in the swell.
So many hours I had spent on that little boat, so many times you had asked to play with it, but I could only say no, wait until it’s finnished.
Walking to the river’s edge we sat for a moment and watched the birds sailing in the ambling breeze, they seemed frozen in this moment as if time didn’t matter to them, they appeared to be stopped in the sky, held aloft by a string within the clouds.
Four birds flying as one.
Together we sat Ted in the boat and gave him a letter to hold, ‘Off to see the world,’ it said, neatly folded and tucked away in an envelope, ‘the wind may carry me to shores unknown but I will forever remember my home.’
As the wind carried the boat away in it’s hollow Autumn swirl we waved goodbye and I felt as though I had joined those birds frozen in the sky.
I..
Soon the boat will pass under the bridge by our home and then will disappear from sight.
A big adventure upon the horizon for Ted, so much to see and a whole world to explore.
Goodbye, Ted…
Goodbye.
J.McCray
2021
Sunday Short Stories 