The Tiny Easter Teddy

Easter, even the word itself sounds full, round around the edges, pregnant with the promise of things to come. Falling in spring, within the swell tide of stretching days, stems shooting from their long sleep in the ground, bird song carving up the last of the still-hang of winter, nature performing at her most generous.

The date is wobbly. We cannot plan our Easter unless we look at a calendar. The moon and earth were once physically connected and like mother and child, still connected with a sort of magnetic umbilical cord. Despite being separated by three hundred and eighty thousand kilometers, their gravitational relationship dictates the order of each other’s lives. The darkness and the light, deluge and dearth, each dawn mimicking birth itself, birth and re-birth, change, motherhood and the cycle of life. 

And then there’s the story of Easter itself, of Jesus and how we interpret his saga of crucifixion, resurrection, friends and betrayal, magic and miracles. There is always hope and the chance of a new start, of forgiveness and peace.

Easter Sunday connects many of us with centuries of history, our ancestors gathering, celebrating in whatever form they could, a visit to church, a good meal if they could afford it. Long before the huge, brightly wrapped chocolate eggs stacked high in our supermarkets, ridiculous and indulgent although I love those too.

A long Easter weekend spent with family is something to cherish and far more enjoyable than the madness of Christmas and the accompanying cold and flu viruses which seem to proliferate at that time of year.

We were all in the car, my family and I and it was a bright sunny Easter morning, glorious in every way. The dogs were in the back, panting with excitement because we were all going on a walk in the countryside. The trees were dressed in their glossy new foliage, the banks were yellow with daffodils. There was a sense that we were rich in so many ways, materially and otherwise. 

Somebody made a joke in the car, a funny comment as we were driving through a beautifully preserved village, old cottages and carefully manicured front gardens. I was laughing when something caught my eye.

It was a small teddy, tiny, not much bigger than a clenched fist and that’s where it was, clutched tightly inside a clenched fist with another hand carefully supporting its underside as if it were made from glass and needed special handling. In faded blue fur, it was flattened by the years but two beady glass eyes looked out at me. I could date the teddy from its simple appearance to at least thirty years old, maybe more.

Quickly because the car was moving, my eyes scanned up from the tiny teddy which was about level with my head to see who was clutching it so very tightly in such an aged, sinewy hands. I saw a cardigan wrapped around a frail torso and then the face of the custodian of the teddy caught me looking. For a split second our eyes met and in her eyes I saw so much sadness it caused an instant pulling sensation in my heart.

She looked slightly unkempt but not poor and she was carrying nothing but the teddy. It appeared that she must live very nearby in one of the village houses and had just popped out on Easter Sunday. Aged around seventy to eighty and unlike the tiny teddy which looked well loved but perfectly preserved in time, she looked like somebody who, over the years had suffered a fate which had caused all her stuffing to be knocked out of her.

As the car drove by, the image remained of the woman and her teddy very clearly etched upon my mind’s eye like a photograph. We passed by the charming old flint church which had a lychgate adorned with a garland of spring blooms, flowers of the rarest for the Easter service and celebration.

I had driven through that particular village on a few occasions and I soon realised that the mature lady who was clutching the tiny teddy was in fact leaving the cemetery through a little wooden gate which led onto the road. 

Her sadness was contagious, it quickly spread to me when the picture book forming inside my head began to attach words and a story. An Easter visit to a grave in the churchyard, a little grave, perhaps newly charged with fresh flowers. The favourite teddy of a child from the village, a long sleep in a small hand-dug bed, deep inside the earth, a child forever. This little teddy now cherished by the mother left behind, worn down by years of grief.

The brightness of my Easter Sunday began to fade. The promise of new beginnings was now accompanied by a threat; life is precious, uncertain, we are all flesh and blood and for every beginning there is also an ending, sometimes the ending comes sooner than our expectations and is sudden. How could I continue to enjoy my day with the sad face of the custodian of the tiny teddy etched in my consciousness?

The day was now like a Holbein painting, among the beautiful colours, the abundance and perceived wealth there was a symbol, a subtle reminder of the transience of life. Nobody else noticed it, they laughed on, oblivious to the omnipresent danger. 

How could I describe in words what I had just so fleetingly observed and how it had made me feel and why should I attempt to burst the bubble for everyone else? The sight was for my eyes only. A reminder to cherish the moment.