My Bear

When I was just a year old, I was given a stuffed animal panda bear for my birthday from my father. It wasn’t anything special. Yet in my eyes, it was my most valuable belonging. I named him Daddy Bear, because as a one year old, you don’t know what a real name is. 

I took him everywhere. I slept with him every night. He was always so happy to come with me and snuggle. He was good at snuggling.

My father wasn’t home most of the time. He worked in the Navy, which demanded a lot of his time. He had to leave and work in Japan for two years. The second two years of my life. Mom and I could have gone with him, but for some stupid reason he was angry with my mother, and decided not to fill out the military application to allow us to go to Japan. I didn’t know what he looked like until he came back, when I was three. But even though I never saw him, I still had my Daddy Bear. 

I don’t remember much when I was three. I know we had a nice, two story house in Washington State, next to the neighborhood park, where my grandmother who was staying with us would take me to play on the swings. And though he could get dirty or lost, I always brought my Daddy Bear.

Shortly after Dad came home from Japan, mom got pregnant with my little brother. I was so happy when they brought him home. They named him Lucian, and I loved him. After he was born, we moved to a tropical island called Guam, and I still had my Daddy Bear.

Now, I’m nearly five. I met my best friend at the time, who was also my neighbor. Her name was Mya. We played all the time. She liked my Daddy Bear, but he didn’t have as much significance for her as he did for me. 

My father was home a lot more for the three years we lived there. He was on what’s called Shore Duty, and he got to come home every night and had the weekends off. He was a drinking sailor, some might say. He really liked beer. Some nights he would drive down to the corner store to get some and I would almost always go with him. I would get goofy in the store, as five year olds tend to. He never found me funny. He didn’t really understand why I got goofy when we would go places. He didn’t know me well enough to know that I get goofy with people I love. 

We had a lot of fun on the island for the three years we lived there in our three story house. I mostly remember the good times when we would go to Chucky Cheese or enjoy the local events. As a five year old girl who spent most of her time thinking about her friends and listening to Let It Go, I didn’t see the bad times between my parents. Dad used to break things when he got angry, but mom always cleaned it up before I could see. 

When I turned eight, we moved back to Washington just before my baby sister, Evangeline, was born, into a one story house with a nice little backyard in a neighborhood with some kids my age. They were lots of fun to play with. My new best friend, Leah, had lots of stuffed animals like I did. She even had a special one that was a bear! We got to share our stories about our favorite bear stuffies. 

Dad went back to Sea Duty, where he was gone most of the time. He worked long days and sometimes wouldn’t even get to come home. Two times, he went out on a deployment, where he was gone for seven months straight. I loved my father, like anyone would…but I began to get unexplainably excited when I was told he wouldn’t be home. I would get to sleep with my mom in her giant bed! Mom would laugh a lot more and we would do fun things. It was better…but was I wrong for thinking that? I never told anyone for fear they would get upset, so I pretended to be sad when he couldn’t come home. 

When he was home, he was often in a bad mood. He didn’t hang out with me as much. Maybe I wasn’t as fun anymore or I was too busy with friends. One night, I remember mom and dad yelling. I walked out of my room to see Dad push Mom backwards onto the couch. I might’ve only been nine, but I knew that pushing was wrong, and you shouldn’t do that. Dad was starting to be kinda scary. Maybe that’s why I would get excited when he wasn’t home. But Daddy Bear wasn’t scary, and he comforted me when other things were. He was the wisest, safest bear. And he was always with me.

When I was ten, Mom came up with an idea to travel in an RV. It was exciting. We got to go look at the campers and figure out which one would be best. We settled for a nice Jayco. On the day I turned eleven, we moved into it and out of the house. Now we were travelers, and it was a blast. 

Dad didn’t like it as much, but mom was adamant and did most of the work anyway…but that was normal, so he allowed it. Dad was still scary, but I knew he loved us because he wouldn’t have given me my Daddy Bear if he hadn’t. 

We lived in that trailer for so long, traveling all around. My youngest brother, Ronan, was born while we were traveling. I loved him just as much as my other two siblings. At the beginning, I was always on the top bunk in the camper along with Lucian. Once I was twelve, we didn’t quite fit together anymore, so Evangeline took his place. It was cool to sleep with my sister every night. But it was comforting to sleep with my Daddy Bear every night.

That winter, when I was twelve, my dad was always in a bad mood. He would always come home and drink his beer. And every other night he would get angry with my mom, and sometimes break things. It was very scary. My mom decided she couldn’t stay here in Washington, where my dad was stationed. So we packed up everything and left him. We drove all the way down to Arizona, where my grandmother and her sister lived. We stayed on an air force base, which was very cool. I’ve never seen so many little planes in one place. 

Dad was very angry that we left. He would call and pester my mom all the time. He would make her cry, even over the phone. He blew a bunch of money on a truck and a boat we didn’t need, and he did it without telling Mom. It made me frustrated with how he was treating her. As I’d grown, I’d grown an even better relationship with my mom. She was my favorite person ever, I hated to see her cry. 

My dad promised to be better, he begged for her to come back. So she did. We all went back up to Washington. We stayed at a military campground called JimCreek. It was nice. My dad was a little better. He didn’t drink as much. He didn’t get as angry…but he would still get angry. He threw my Tiny dog across the yard one time. In fact, animal abuse had always been a thing in my house. But I was used to it, so I didn’t realize it was a problem.

We then went looking for a house to buy nearby. We found a very cute one, up on a big hill on a private road. We loved it. I’m thirteen now, and that Thanksgiving, we officially owned the house. 

Moving in was fun. I got to share a room with my sister, she had the top bunk and I had the bottom. I didn’t realize how much I missed having my own bed…well, aside from my Daddy Bear. Daddy Bear was so old now. He’s been all around the country. He was only a year younger than me. His fur didn’t feel as soft as it used to, and his eyes were damaged from being played with. But I still loved him all the same. 

We started to build up a farm on our property. We got two more dogs. We got chickens, ducks, bunnies, pigs, goats. It was all coming together. Then my dad started to get so annoyed with the goats. They never used to get out of the fence. Then he thought a different kind of fencing would be better. It wasn’t. Now they were getting out all of the time and eating things like his apple trees, which he never really took care of. He wanted to sell them or eat them. I voted to sell as I still loved our goats and didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. They ended up going to a friend, who also loved them. 

We built up really nice garden beds for plants and vegetables. Well, he would tell you that he did it, but he couldn’t have without my help. 

He started becoming awful again. Breaking things, yelling, threatening to divorce my mom. I am fifteen years old now. I saw a lot more than I used to. And I understand it. My mom wasn’t the problem. No, she never was, and I knew that. But then I saw it. 

I was working at an equestrian center, two days a week for free lessons in return. I had a blast with the horses. My dad was always annoyed when I wasn’t home though. Instead of just being happy for me, he made me feel bad for going. 

By my sixteenth year, we’d been in the house for three years. It was looking great, as far as the house was. I started getting paid for my job. I was a great rider. My siblings and I had a great relationship. Me and my mom were laughing all the time. That is, until my dad would get home from work. Which was every day, because he’s on shore duty. I never thought I would miss sea duty that much. 

One day, my mom, Lucian, Evangeline and I were all playing a video game, having a good time, while my dad was doing schoolwork, which always made him irritable. Ronan was playing with his toys, making a mess as six year olds tend to do. When it was time to clean up, my mom asked him to do so, but he didn’t listen. It wasn’t a big deal, that’s how little kids are, especially Ronan, who was a strong willed, adorable little boy. Then my father got involved. He grabbed Ronan’s arm and told him to pick up the toys, but Ronan didn’t want to. This escalated to my dad hitting Ronan several times on the back, and not letting go of his arm. Ronan was crying, he just wanted to go to his mom. Anytime my mom would say anything in hope to make Dad stop, he just got angrier. So I step in. I imagine most girls my age didn’t have to stand up to their scary father because they were beating their little brother, but that’s exactly what happened to me. I yelled at him to stop and told him he was going to injure Ronan, not that he hadn’t already left hand marks. The shock and hate my father looked at me with shook my core, and he stopped. He left in his truck to go get drinks from the gas station. Meanwhile we find two red handprints on my brother and broken blood vessels where my dad had held his arm. When my father came home, he did not apologize to my brother. He never did. This was a problem. And it started an insane chain of events. 

A month after that, my mom told my dad she wanted to divorce. She hadn’t filed yet, but she took off her ring so he knew she was serious. He begged her to stay, but never once cried. My father never, ever cried. But he did stop drinking. He stopped being horrible, but he still wasn’t fun to be around. He always had a negative energy. No one really liked him, except for the people at work, who he was always nice towards and friendly and funny with…wish he could have been that for us. 

A few moths go by. He definitely wasn’t perfect. We started this “him being better” situation with him saying he had no expectations. If it took my mom forever to be willing to stay, so be it. But that quickly changed. He wanted her to love on him again, he wanted her to say she loved him. He wanted her to decide to stay. Thankfully, she didn’t bend that easily to his wants. 

At this point, I’m Seventeen. I want my mom to leave so bad. I didn’t like my father anymore. Maybe I still loved him, but I didn’t like him. He wasn’t nice to be around, he made me feel insignificant and dumb. He bashed music I loved, didn’t want to hear about my job and wasn't interested in anything I liked. I started to question if he actually loved me. 

It’s July and I finally got to visit my very best friend in Oregon. I went and had the best time of my life. She is one of my favorite people. And I connected with her dad as well over my trip. We became close, and even after I left, we continued to talk over the phone. It was really nice to have that father figure in my life that wasn’t a total jerk. He told me about a dark time in his life, and how maybe that was how my father was feeling. So I gave him the benefit of the doubt. The week after I got back from my trip, I tried really hard to engage with my dad. I tried to talk to him, I told him I loved him, I tried helping him with dinner. It wasn’t working. Anytime I spent with him, I left feeling worse. His energy infected mine any time I was with him. He spread his negative emotions anywhere he went…and I was done. I came to the conclusion that he only really wanted my mother, and only for his selfish needs. He didn’t love me, and now, I stopped loving him. I couldn’t anymore. It was painful. 

Middle of August. My dad threatened my mother with a gun. She had told him she was going to leave, yet again. He couldn’t have that. He threatened to kill himself too. The police were called, they were on their way. He went outside, and my mom was there too. He told her he was going to drive his truck 70 miles an hour into a post and that when he died, he hoped it messed up my siblings and I and that we blamed our mother and it ruined our relationship. When he got to the bottom of the driveway, the police were there, and they arrested him. I was happy. I was so happy he was gone. We were safe. It was over. This man wouldn’t hurt us anymore…but I was still afraid. What if he was released from jail? What if he came back? He was going to have a hearing on September 6th, that would determine whether he was staying in jail or not. 

A week after he was arrested, all those problems went away. Suddenly. Amazingly. And terribly. 

He had killed himself in jail. 

I didn’t know what to think at first. I really didn’t. I was glad everything was done, that he couldn’t get to us, but how can I be happy about a death? Why did it have to happen this way?…I guess this was the only way we could truly be free. 

We are better now. We are happier. My siblings weren’t even that upset about it when they found out. 

One day, I walked into my room to make my bed. I saw my old friend. My Daddy Bear. What does he mean now? Someone who was terrible gave him to me…it’s a weird feeling. I snuggled with him that night…I still felt comforted by him. But I think I might change his name. I think he can just be Bear now. He’s my Bear, and he’s special because of me.