Dead Teddy (warning - explicit, icky photos below)

Are you getting a theme here?

Today is the final day of my vacation (weekends don't count). I have spent the week doing those annoying little tasks that are so hard for me to get to on my weekends and so easy to put off in lieu of other things. Mostly I've continued to list and give away a lot of stuff on freecycle, and cleaned/organized things like the laundry room which are largely ignored.

Today I put a pillowcase full of dusty stuffed animals into the washer. Most of them will be donated and I wanted them to be clean but there are a couple that have too much sentimental value and I just wanted them clean for me. Among my keepers are the weird cross-eyed cat with a zipper compartment for "valuables" that Dad gave me many Christmasses ago. And of course, Teddy.

Teddy is the Teddy bear I got when I was born so Teddy is a true antique now. He has had eyeball and nose replacements and many surgeries, including a vasectomy and heart valve replacement and one of those jugular thingies. Also some back surgery. He was so well loved all my life. So thoughtless of me to put him in the washer, although what else would I have done? When I opened the washer his guts were all over the others and he was in pretty poor shape:

He's pretty wet now but I'm going to put him in the sun and let him dry and then I will stuff his guts back into him and stitch up his dry-rotted parts and maybe even give him some new eye-buttons. There aren't many things that would cause me to make such an effort for something so far gone but Ted was an icon of my childhood and he is worth it. He'll be a bit lopsided but will still be my Teddy.

I suppose like me my Teddy has been through a lot. Doesn't make us any better or worse than the normal human or stuffed animal. There are scars and some stuffing has fallen out and certainly he isn't perfect. He's moved more times than I care to think, been stuffed into drawers, slept on by cats, and generally suffered bad times along with the good. Maybe some would think it is time to throw him away in this condition. But in the end I think scars, both internal and external, are a sign of a life well lived, and of a life well worth continuing to live fully. We are both survivors and I will fix him as best I can so that once again the cats can sleep on him and he can get dusty and fall apart and get fixed back up for a few more decades. Unconditional love is a wonderful thing.