My father died eight years ago; I suppose he felt tired for some time before he fessed up to being pretty ill, but he did not allow he might have the flu until January 8th. We took him to the hospital on January 15th, supposedly for rehydration. I remember watching his feet go down the back steps of the deck – me on one side of him, my daughter-in-law, a nurse, on the other. I thought maybe he wouldn’t be coming home. He didn’t. He died on February 10th and we buried him on the 14th. My youngest son had come back when he was ill because we thought he would have many good days and some months or so. One semester of college didn’t seem that important at that time.

I don’t know how we got started doing it but he and I would really form a bond with these bears we would see in GoodWill; it just seemed we had to bring them home. I don’t know about Quentin, but I didn’t want them to be just material and stuffing. I guess I wanted them for a little while to be real. I needed them to be real because if they could be real in my mind, other things could. Actually, I never really thought that, and didn’t much think it now. it just seemed okay coming out on the keyboard. Looking back, I think Quentin knew I needed something soft and comforting and innocent. Maybe we both did.

As we – but mostly it was me – started getting a pile of these bears, we noticed some of them were exactly alike except for color and label. We referred to them as “the fam” , adopting the phrase from the movie “What About Bob.” At least that’s where I think we first latched onto it – Bill Murrary and “the fam”.

We gave them names and so we wouldn’t forget we stuck their names on their butts with masking tape.

This bear is Demonesque. We pretty much went with the first impression thing, so I don’ t know that he is. I will say that in the last years, he has nothing mischievous.

Maybe it is time to pull the masking tape off and send him back to GoodWill.