Nostalgia

When my family lived in Moline (1982-ish), I have a clear memory of my dad coming home from a business trip with a special gift for me. How exciting! I remember coming down our staircase excited that he was home, and he handed me the package. Keep in mind that gifts upon arrival were not expected or the norm, and most times that he travelled I was excited to get the little soaps and shampoos from his hotel room. I had to be in K or 1st grade because we moved in the middle of 1st and my memory tells me that this moment was in our lovely yellow Moline home.

Getting to the point, Dad got me my first Care Bear, Tenderheart. I really loved this bear, and he immediately went to the top of my stuffed animal collection's pecking order. My collection of CB's grew over the next few years (memories of feeling packages under the Christmas tree and knowing a new one was there b/c of their oddly shaped package I could feel under the wrapping come to mind) but Tenderheart always remained my #1. He is much more worn than the others and still seems more special for some reason.

Getting to another point of this story, I have kept my CB's up in the attic the past few years not really thinking about them and when we knew we were having a boy, I figured they may never go to use, but...Luke noticed the characters on another vintage CB product in the house and seemed really interested in them. The item is a 25 year old metal garbage can with all of the bears on it that we use for the bathroom trash, he spotted it after his bath on Monday. This inspired me to get the bears down from the attic, throw them in the wash machine and see what would happen.


Well, once again, Tenderheart was the bear that Luke thought was cool, too. I am not making this up, but Tenderheart is the one that he picked out of the row to spend some one on one time with and even read a couple of books to this morning. Can I just confess to the surprising happiness that having these bears out brings me, and to how thankful I am that my dad brought this little guy home for me 25 years ago. (I have to wonder if my mom didn't tell him to find it and bring it home?)