She knew all my secrets and never told anyone. She sang me to sleep, hugged me, smiled at me, and never left my side until I was ready.
That was when she was new. The pink and purple Build-a-Bear I had received for Christmas. A transparent dark violet ribbon was wrapped around the bear's neck and tied under her muzzle in a perfect bow. A smile that stretched from one side of her face to the other in a “w” was always there. In her glossy brown eyes I could see my own reflection. A smiling, overjoyed five year old girl sitting in a pile of wrapping paper in her new red and green striped Hannah Anderson cotton pajamas, gasping then singing a chorus of thank yous, before burying her face into the bear’s soft fur. If you squeezed the bear’s paw it sang a song to you. Her song was a sweet lullaby.
I named her Abigail. She was the bear who would go to the hospital many times with me for comfort, and the bear I would take to the bear hospital after she stopped singing and to get restuffed. The bear who I did everything with.
Now, ten years later, Abigail still smiles at me every morning from her place on the  shelf. Her purple and pink coat of fuzz is stained brown in some places and is crusty from years of comforting hugs and adventures outside. Her perfectly tied bow is curled and twisted so much it is hard to tell its original shape. Her eye are peaking out from under her tuft hair that covers them at the edges. Where I squeezed her hand tightly when I was scared no longer plays a stream of perfect notes, but a raspy sharp version of the song “Lullaby Little Baby”.
I don’t take her on as many adventures, or tell her all my secrets, but every once in awhile I will take her off my shelf to be hugged, or sing me a song. Sometimes she goes on big adventures to my little brother’s room. There she is hugged, talked to and sings the same song until she is course. Although I don’t take her on every adventure I go on in life, every morning when I wake up and see the pink and purple fuzzy worn out Build-a-Bear named Abigail, I remember that overjoyed little girl on Christmas morning and all of the other adventure I had with her, and cannot help but smile.