Rite of Passage

This is Loyal Heart Dog. He is honest and loyal. His faithfulness and warm personality make him the best true-blue friend anyone could ever have. The heart-shaped medal on Loyal Heart Dog's tummy stands for the things he stands for - being truthful, trustworthy & a loyal friend.

Jacob had one of these guys, but don't tell him that I used the past tense. It was given to Jacob around the time of his birth, by my brother and sat up on a shelf for three years. At some point recently I pulled it off the shelf, by Jacob's request or my own volition, I can't remember. Jacob took to it immediately and it starting going everywhere with us. Around the time when I realized that this bear was going to be IT for Jacob, he'd just watched the show Little Bear for the first time. So when I asked Jacob if he'd thought about naming what is actually a dog, he naturally came back with Little Bear.

Little Bear got lots of snuggle time, went on many interesting car trips, and was often the main character in some of Jacob's outrageous scenarios. She was on her way to becoming Jacob's 'Blankie'. Blankie was my security blanket when I was a kid. She is, of course, a living being with a personality of her very own, complete with actual feelings. She used to go to school with me everyday (for more years than I'm comfortable admitting) and slept with me every night. I was forever waking up in the middle of the night with Blankie nowhere to be found. I, or my mom (enlisted to help in the search), woud inevitably find Blankie smooshed up in the corner of the bed, or under the covers, or between the wall and the mattress and all would be well again. There was one terrifying time, I think I was seven, when Blankie was actually lost out there in the world and I remember my parents driving around for what seemed like hours (and very well could have been) looking for her with me. I finally found her mushed up in a snowbank in the parking lot of the place we'd eaten dinner at and I cannot describe the feeling of completeness when she was safe again in my arms. After that Blankie became triplets. I took the scissors to her and cut away so that I would always have a piece of her with me.

I think my own experience of having lost and found something whose permanent disappearance could have shattered my world is what is keeping me from reconciling the loss of Little Bear. It was almost two weeks ago when I last saw her (we decided it was a 'she'). I was dropping Jacob off at my mom's so I could go to work. I was in a rush but was sure to make it very clear that when Jacob left her house Little Bear must go with him. This was the day that I took Jacob to the doctor for his sick visit. My mom swears Little Bear left the house with them, but the point where things become foggy is when she and Jamie pulled in the parking lot at my work. They were bringing Jacob to me so I could get him to his appointment. We were all too preoccupied to notice if Little Bear was there or not. I can't exactly remember when we did realize she was gone. It was at least a couple days later, and maybe Jacob was asking after her. I told him we must have left her at Grandma's house and that we'd get her next time we were there. Well when Little Bear wasn't there a couple days later I knew it meant trouble. It was the weekend so the call to the doctor's office would have to wait until Monday. In the meantime, we (my mom and I) began ruling out other places as well as scouring the compartments of our brains that might hold a clue to the whereabouts of Little Bear.

My Monday afternoon it was clear that LB was more than likely never to be seen again. I got on the computer and began the great Ebay search. I've found them, but none that I can be sure are exactly like our LB. I am positive Little Bear had bearish ears; little round ones at the top of her head like any other Care Bear would have, but remember, this is a dog, a Care Bear Cousin, and the dog ears are floppy and hang down. Loyal Heart Dog doesn't come with the dinky, round ears. Now I am convinced that we had a 'flawed' Care Bear which would have been worth a ton. The one variant (because there are different versioins of each CareBear) I can't pin down is whether or not our LB had the eye patch or not. The more I think about it, the more confused I get. And it is killing me that I don't have a clear picture of her in my head. I've scoured all of our pictures hoping for a glimpse of her.

How is Jacob doing with all of this? The first week he was crushed that we didn't have her. He would ask everyday where she was and when we were getting her back, his face all twisted up and pouty. When we got back home after being at my mom's the time we were supposed to be getting LB back, Jacob started to cry as he realized, "We never got Little Bear back from Grandma's!" In all the time I spent researching it on the computer I've been so careful to hide the screen from Jacob. I didn't want him to see the picture and be reminded because at this point he's only been asking about her every other day. But when I was checking out on ebay after the closing of the auction, Jacob saw the picture and said, "Oh yeah, where is that little bear?" Did you catch that? That litte bear, uncapitalized. She's already losing importance to him and that makes me incredibly sad. I don't know why it should, but it's like part of his childhood is being lost to the only place I can figure Little Bear must have ended up - the muddy parking lot.

So here we are, in the middle of it still. I'm not sure how the experience will be relfected upon down the road when I'm looking back at it, but for now all I can do look down at the road when I'm driving, as if I'm expecting to see Little Bear resting there in the gutter. There's something Freudian in this and I can't quite put my finger on it...all I can say is this feels like some weird parental rite of passage that's just part of the deal. With love, comes loss.

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Postscript: I wrote this over a week ago, so there've been more devlopments, but I figure this is so damn long already that I'll save the updates for my next post. Stay tuned.