It’s funny how something can unknowingly become a part of who you are. A tradition or a habit that you might not even remember where it came from, but without it, life just might be missing something.

For me, that something was a bear.

Not a black bear, a brown bear, or even a polar bear. Just an ordinary stuffed bear.

I was only 22 years old when I was expecting my first child. I did all the things that a new soon-to-be mom does: the shopping, the dreaming, the panic attacks, and the nesting.

But when the crib went up before the baby arrived, the emptiness of it didn’t feel right. So I went back out to the stores to do more shopping.

I was looking for it, the thing that would make that big empty crib not feel so overwhelming.

And I found it!

Sitting on a shelf in a store,

not in the layette department,

but in the toy department.

A bear.

A stuffed bear.

A Puffalump stuffed bear, to be exact.

So home this bear went with me and took its place of honor in the empty crib, waiting, just waiting, for the day we brought the baby home.

Zac called him Teddy and loved him to pieces.

Years later, after I married my second husband, I found out a little before Christmas that we would be having a baby. So on Christmas morning, sitting under the tree was...

A bear.

That bear took its place of honor in the crib, happily waiting for the baby to arrive.

Renee called him Gray Bear and wouldn’t go anywhere without him.

Years later, when we decided to add another child to our family and were waiting for an adoption match with a young girl, I took Zac and Renee shopping for a...

Bear!

They found a white bear with wings like an angel. So home this bear went with us and sat on the bed, waiting for a little girl to come love it.

And she did.

Jaelynne called her Angel Bear.

About two years later, on a Wednesday night, Mark and I got a phone call from the adoption agency. They had an urgent need to move a baby and wanted to know if we had room in our hearts for this little boy.

On Thursday night, Mark and I went shopping. We bought a case of diapers, a baseball cap...

And a bear.

We went home and put up the crib. And there the bear sat, waiting until the next afternoon.

Nick called her BooBoo.

Fast forward about seven years, and a foster care worker called with an urgent need to move a toddler.

We said yes.

Ten days later, she called again with another urgent need for a toddler the same age.

We said yes!

Now, the first little boy is Black and the second little boy is Asian and white. So when I found a brown bear and a cream-colored bear sitting together on a store shelf, I knew they were coming home with me.

Jason, our darker child of the two, got the cream-colored bear.

And Josh, our very pale child, got the brown bear.

And they are no longer foster kiddos!

About nine months ago, I was sitting at my desk when my oldest son called me.

“Hey, Lady, do you want to know what P.J. and I just did?”

P.J. is his son, my first grandson, so of course I wanted to know what the two of them were up to.

“We just bought a bear.”

And I cried.❤️

And now, in just a few short days, Freddie will meet his bear.