The Teddy Bear Legacy: A Story of Sibling Bonds and Loss

One item that I was very much attached to as a youth was my teddy bear. I know, it sounds cliche but this teddy bear was very special to me. It originally belonged to my older brother Josh. The reason it no longer belonged to him and was given to me was because when he was very young he got very sick.

I will share the story with you about how I remember my mom telling it to me. She said that every night before bed she would check up on us. But one night, my brother ate dinner and ate quite a bit. Then later on he went to bed. She went to check on us, and my dad told her not to worry about us. She checked on us every night before she went to bed, to make sure we were okay. So it was unusual that my father asked her not to check on us.

The next morning when she woke up she came to wake us up, and my brother was laying in the bed staring straight up at the ceiling with no expression on his face. She couldn’t get a response out of him, he had gone into a vegetative state overnight. She obviously rushed him over to the hospital right away. He was transferred to the children’s hospital nearby which was in Milwaukee.

The doctors didn’t know what happened to him. I don’t think she ever really got any answers about that. What they suspect is that he must have choked on his own vomit or on his own saliva that night. It was as though his brain had been suffocated to the point where there was so much damage that he became unresponsive. They said that he could only see shadows he could hear but he could know who was around him but he didn’t have the full capacity of his brain.

That’s a story of how I remember my mom telling me. My aunt and the other people in my family may have a different account of the story. Either way, I don’t remember much of him. I was told a lot of things like he was always very protective over my twin sister. Even to the point of protecting her from me.

Well after he got sick, my mother and my father divorced. She couldn’t take care of him and the twins, (me and my sister) so she ended up having to give him up for adoption. I guess when he left I received the teddy bear. I remember it was really big and it was supposed to be white, but it was so well loved that it was this dim gray color.

I’m not really sure where the teddy bear is now, it might be in storage at my older sister’s house. I have a lot of stuff over there. Otherwise, I may have tossed it out when I was moving one of these times just because there are so many things that you accumulate over the years. That teddy bear meant a lot to me but like I know that it wasn’t something that I could hold on to for the rest of my life. So if I did give it up it was with a lot of hesitation but also a lot of maturity, I suppose.

In 2013, my mother passed away from brain cancer. When she was going through treatment for it, my aunt and sister tried to track down my brother but they were unable to find any information. For that reason, we believe that he may have passed away. It is sad to think about but at the same time, I think he didn’t really have a good quality of life, so I hope he is in a better place now and fully able-bodied.

It’s peculiar that this question came up around now. I think it’s a synchronicity because I was just thinking about the teddy bear a few days ago. Whenever I think about the bear, which is maybe one or two times a year, I think of my brother. I think for that reason, I am most thankful for the bear. Even if it isn’t in my physical vicinity, the memory of it helps me remember my brother.