MIA HeartBear

Heather and I bought a small white teddybear covered with red hearts for Norah to mark her first Valentine's Day. Norah has a massive collection of stuffed animals and toys, but HeartBear

is really the only one she consistently carries, dresses, and fusses over.

Naturally she took her with us on our most recent vacation, and played with her in her room after we returned. Somewhere after the first day back, Heather noticed she had not seen her in a while. Eventually she made a casual search of the house, but to no avail. She told me about it and we both thought she was surely somewhere in the house.

We both made attempts to find her, each attempt leading us to look in more outrageous places. Finally we had to call everywhere outside the house including stores, the church, Grandma's hotel, etc, but nobody found her. I became obsessed in my search. Each night brought a new grid search of the house, room by room, corner by corner. I looked everywhere twice. Looking under couch cushions, under the couch, behind the couch, under, behind, and inside every piece of furniture, in every cabinet, in the trash, the recycling bins, in the car.

We felt silly, surely she was in the house and why are we looking so hard, particularly when Norah doesn't seem too distressed about it? Norah didn't really consider her lost. We began to realize that finding HeartBear really meant more to us than it did to Norah. We remembered HeartBear with Norah through every phase of her life so far. Even more strongly we remembered our fears and the sense of helplessness when Norah was in the hospital and remembered her requests as she sought comfort amidst her pain, discomfort and fear. She appreciated our reassuring words and hugs, but she specifically asked for her HeartBear. We remembered how her groggy eyes lit up when she saw her in the hospital, and the thought of losing her now drove us crazy.

The kids were growing increasingly tired of interrogation. Where did you last see her? What were you doing with her? Did you take her outside? In the car? To the store? I even looked suspiciously at Missy, known to love plush toys to death. After the conclusion of 3 consecutive nights of lengthy, thorough grid searches I started to accept that, however unlikely, she was probably lost for good. She had probably fallen out of the car somewhere, like Justin's green shoe at a gas station in Wyoming. Sadly I pictured her laying in the road someplace or dumped in a trashcan.

While Heather was at work, I sat down with the kids in Norah's room to help her pick up her toys. We turned clean-up into a game to see who could assemble the most groups of similar toys. A few minutes into the competition I picked up a tiny backpack to place with her other bags. I noticed it several times before, but never thought much about it since it was too small to hold anything of consequence. It's unexpected weight surprised me. It's contents were squishy and made no sound. As I pulled HeartBear from captivity and back into family life my index finger shot into the air along with a victory cry that slightly startled both children.

Norah beamed as she screamed out "You found HeartBear!" and proceeded to squeeze her joyfully. The moment called for celebration, so we scrambled into the living room, fired up the Aquabats on the IPOD and initiated an impromptu dance break commemorated with pictures.