Bears of Joy


Too many people think that a piece of blanket could mean just a simple cloth woven together to keep you warm. But what if that blanket was made just for you, would it mean something then? My Mother and Grandmother made me a baby blanket when I was just a baby. My grandmother thought it would be nice to make be something I would want to keep forever. Through the years it has kept me warm, but as I got older it has given me lots more. How you might ask?
It’s a twelve by nine square feet blanket with pink bears in each square. She said that based on my mom’s pregnancy she knew I would be a feisty little girl. I don’t however agree with that. My grandmother would go on and on talking about how as a baby I would kick a lot. The day I was born I did nothing but cry. So she picked the bear, because to her it represented a cute but fears animal. On the top left corner of the blanket starts with the letter C ending with the letter L on the last right corner making my name diagonal. On all the other squares are little bears with the name of week on them and each doing something different? The bears on the blanket are cleaning, going to church to just playing outside. On the back side of the blanket is this soft pink blanket it’s soft as a cloud and pink.

As a little girl and even in to my teen age years, I would sleep with it. When I was about 5 I remember going through that stage where I would put the blanket around my neck and pretend I was a super hero and that my blanket gave me special powers. At 10, I thought I was too old for a baby blanket because none of my friends thought it was cool. So one day I put it on my top shelf in my closet thinking this was the next big step for me, that I would be looked at as a cool girl and hoping no one would know what my blanket. I didn’t touch it until I was about 15. Going through all my old stuff and I found it I remember being so happy and so amazed for some reason that it had survive all those years. Ever since then it hasn’t left my bedside.
Until I recently moved and on the process of all the moving houses my blanket went missing in between all the boxes. I can’t find it anywhere. I pretty much cried every time I walked into my room because I would think this, this is where I would have put it and just to think of all the good times I had with it and all the memories I went through all the tears shed on it because of all the so called heat brakes I received from boy growing up. This piece of cloth was meant so much to me, it was the one thing I could hold and feel safe. Every thunder storm, every bad dream, every fight with my mom, every family member lost my blanket helped me through it all, just to have lost… it hurts like crazy. I asked my grandmother to make me a new one; it won’t replace the one I lost but I do fell since this one we are making together its already starting to make memories. I love my grandmother to death and being the only grandchild she’s making a second one for is something really special. It’s a new blanket being made with new memories. Just the thought of it makes me feel worm and at peace knowing that soon I will have something to wipe my tears with and will get me through those thunderstorms again.