The Strangest of Relationships
Growing up as an only child in a foreign country with an absent father and severely depressed mother I learned to surround myself with love the best way I could. I constructed my own family with my stuffed animals. You’d think it would have been something I’d outgrow in my twenties but there’s something to be said for having someone, even if they are in part fictional, by your side whenever you need them.
Some people are pet people. The only pets I ever had were hamsters: Chip in elementary school and Pooky in college and although it was never proven, I somehow feel at least indirectly responsible for their deaths. I’m an only child and by nature selfish. Maintaining my own diet, exercise, grooming and living quarters is high maintenance enough without factoring another being’s welfare into the picture. Therefore, I think it’s in everyone’s best interest, for the sake of animal kind and whatever chance I still have of getting into heaven, that I remain a non-pet person.
I have my bear.
Growing up as an only child in a foreign country with an absent father and severely depressed mother I learned to surround myself with love the best way I could. I constructed my own family with my stuffed animals. They each had their own unique personalities, preferences, pecking order and cute cartoon voices. One day when I broke the television set my mother put all but one of my stuffed animals in cabinets too high for me to reach. It was one of the worst days of my young life. That coupled with the fact that the disturbance I’d caused led my mother to get drunk, piss off my Dad and I witnessed their first physical fight. I had only my Mickey Mouse to cry on and I told him everything. Growing up in an Asian society there were some things you couldn’t tell anyone else, accept my animals. They only spoke to me and could be trusted.
Hussein Bear was a gift from my high school sweetheart, given to me right before we left for colleges separated by the Atlantic Ocean. When he gave him to me outside of Toys’R’Us he told me it was so I’d have someone to talk to and cry on because now he would be too far away for all the hours we spent on late night phone calls. I took it to heart and even though our relationship never made it past orientation, the bear stayed.
You’d think it would have been something I’d outgrow in my twenties. Granted I don’t talk to any of my other animals, but Hussein Bear and I sleep together every night (provided another man’s not present!) and like his predecessors, I tell him everything. When there’s a fire alarm I grab him first before reaching for other replaceable items like my passport and jewelry, and when I travel he comes in my carry-on bag. Maybe that makes me worse than the Crazy Cat Lady, but there’s something to be said for having someone, even if they are in part fictional, by your side whenever you need them.
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