Memories I had boxed away resurfaced. Not the conflicts or the moments that stick because they hurt, but the quieter ones. Small kindnesses. Silly jokes in grocery store aisles. Unexpected coffees on difficult days. Our breakup hadn’t been dramatic; we had simply drifted apart without realizing we were drifting.
For years, I treated the bear as proof he didn’t understand me. Sitting with it now, I saw something else. Maybe it was proof he tried.
The feeling that washed over me wasn’t regret. It was gentler than that. A kind of understanding that only arrives once enough time has passed and the old emotions have softened. I realized I wasn’t really thinking about him—I was thinking about who I used to be. For a long time, I confused softness with weakness and ignored anything that felt too tender or symbolic. But time changes you, sometimes without asking.
I placed the bear on the shelf by the window, not because I missed the relationship, but because it had become a reminder of something different. A reminder that the things we overlook can sometimes show us how much we’ve grown. That it’s okay to see value in things we once dismissed.
When my nephew comes back next week, he’ll probably ask another unexpectedly deep question, and maybe I’ll tell him the truth. That sometimes we don’t understand what something means until we’re far enough away from it. That even adults misunderstand their own feelings. That it’s normal to change your mind about what matters.
And that yes, sometimes a bear might look like it’s waiting for someone who never returned—but sometimes, the person who needed to come back was you.