Inside was a worn teddy bear.
The same one from every baby photo I had ever seen of my stepdaughter. The bear with the flattened ear and stitched smile. The bear she had once clutched in pictures, long before I ever existed in her life.
For illustrative purposes only
There was a note tucked beneath it.
It was written to me.
“I’m sending this to her, but I know you’ll probably see it first. This bear—she slept with it until she was four. I understood why you said no to my call. I wasn’t a good mom back then. But I need you to know I never stopped being her mother, even from a distance. Please give this to her when you think she’s ready.”
I sat on the floor holding that bear for over an hour.
The weight of it in my hands felt heavier than it should have been—heavy with years, with regret, with a love that had never known how to stay. Tears streamed down my face as memories collided with truths I hadn’t wanted to face.
She hadn’t been a good mother.
But she had been a mother.
