Wrapped in Memory

My father called me Bear.
Each year on my birthday, a Teddy Bear arrived in his hands, a small ritual of love, a thread tying us together.

Then came the forgetting.
Dementia unraveled his memory, his personality, his knowing of me. The year the ritual broke, I wrapped one of his bears in cloth and yarn, sealing love inside layers of fabric. That first act of mummification became a meditation, an attempt to hold what was slipping away.

Since then, I have bound bear after bear, each one heavy with memory. Each one a vessel of grief and tenderness. Each one a tether back to him. By the time his eyes no longer found mine, six Mummy Bears stood as witnesses, silent guardians of our bond.

On Thanksgiving 2024, my father left this world. Yet the ritual endures.
Each year, I wrap another bear., to remember, to weave him back into my life.

My Mummy Bears are not toys.
They are offerings.
They are prayers.
They are the shape of love, surviving loss.

To wrap a bear, is to wrap my father back into being, to fold time, memory, and grief into a form I can hold.
He remains with me, thread by thread, bear by bear,
forever my father,
forever his Bear.