The department store gleamed like a gigantic Christmas tree. Lights were everywhere. I was five years old and very excited, trying to imagine what I would soon find under the tree on Christmas morning. All at once I saw him. He was looking at me from out of the midst of various "creatures." He was a panda bear, and he was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
"There, Mom, that's what I want for Christmas, a panda bear. Ain't he nice? He would look so pretty on my bed."
"Isn't, Jackie, not ain't. Anyway, we already have your Christmas present taken care of," said my mother as she hurried me out of the department store.
My present turned out to be a dress Mom had made for me. Couldn't she understand that the only thing I wanted in this whole wide world was a panda bear?
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Why? I keep telling you why. You're too old. Only little girls play with teddy bears. You're ten years old and it's time to think of grown-up things for Christmas.
"But Mom," I said, "I just want to sit it on my bed. It's realy only for decoration and I don't want a 'teddy bear,' I want a panda bear."
"Well, we'll see," she said.
"We'll see, we'll see..." That's the way the conversation always ended.
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My stepfather became very ill. My mother thought it best I live for a while at a church orphanage.
"I'll be paying money each month for you to stay there, so there will be no danger of anyone adopting you," she said. "As soon as things are better, we'll bring you home. It will work out for the best, you'll see."
"Mom, maybe I could take a panda bear with me and keep it on my bed, it wouldn't seem so lonely that way." I suggested.
"Jackie, we've been over this before, and anyway you won't have time to be lonely. There will be thirty-five or forty girls in your group. Even though you're eleven, they're putting you in the twelve to eighteen group. They feel you're too mature for the younger girls. Now isn't that nice of them?"
"yes, but..."
Without even a pause she went on talking. "They would make fun of you, you're a big girl now."
It turned out I couldn't have had it anyway. We were not allowed to have any "decorations" on our beds.
"If we let one girl have something, then we have to let all the girls, and that would clutter up the dorm," Miss Parks, our counselor, told us
Things didn't get better at home and two years later my stepfather died. My grandma and grandpa had converted their home into a duplex and Mom and I became their first tenants.
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"It's your 'sweet sixteen' birthday coming up. What would you like in the way of something special?" Mom asked.
I started to ask for a panda bear, but "No," I thought, "She would just say, "What? at you age?"
The coat was lovely. My mother was a professional seamstress and she had put a real fur collar and cuffs on it. She even made mittens with fur backs to match the coat. It may have been a foolish thing to do, but I kept the mittens on the pillow of my bed.
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"What!" exclaimed my husband, Ron. "You want a panda bear for Christmas? A twenty-five year old woman wants a 'teddy bear'?" he said, laughing.
"Please don't call it a teddy bear," I pleaded. "A panda bear is what I asked for. Oh forget it," I said. He was still laughing as I left the room.
Over the years I tried to get our children interested in panda bears, but they were all boys and did not seem to be interested in soft cuddly things. For a while I had great hopes for our son Mike, but his "love" turned out to be a clown that laughed when you pulled his string.
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Christmas was not far away, and Ron and I were walking through a department store looking for some ideas for the grandchildren. Suddenly, there he was, sitting all alone in the corner of a shelf. No, not a panda bear, a koala bear! The ribbon around his neck was frayed and dirty. His nose was slightly crooked and, where the little button eyes should have been, there was nothing.
"O Look, Ron," I said, "A little blind bear. How sad, I guess no one wants to give him a home. He looks lonely." Ron gave me a "you,re not going to start that again" look. I didn't say any more.
We finished our shopping and as we were leaving the store Ron said, "Go on to the car, I'll be right there. I forgot something."
A few minutes later, he opened the car door and sat the little blind bear on my lap.
"Here," he said, "I thought it would be nice if we gave him a home."
Timmie was very content at our house. He's was still blind, but then he never ventured far from the pillows on our bed.
(Timmie with his new "tie")
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Ron is gone now. We were married forty five years. He was taken by cancer. Timmie was a real comfort to me. Being able to reach out to him in the darkness of the nights made the loneliness a little more bearable.
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Another Christmas.
Another department store.
"What a cute bear," said my husband John as he picked up a cuddly panda bear. "Lets take him home."
It was my first Christmas together with John - again. John had been my high school sweetheart; I hadn't seen him in over 50 years.
"Of course," I said. "Let's take him home. It's time Timmie had a little brother."
As Ron rescued Timmie from the loneliness of the department store shelf, John has rescued me from the loneliness of an empty home.
THE END
Jackie McCune-Merical
copyright 2007
