This is Teddy.
He was made before I was born, and somehow, through all the places I’ve lived, all the people I’ve loved, all the things I’ve owned and lost, and all the versions of me that have come and gone, Teddy stayed.
He’s not in very good shape anymore.
Neither am I.
He’s missing an arm. He’s worn nearly smooth in places. Whatever he looked like when he was new disappeared a lifetime ago.
But he is, without question, my most valued possession.
These days Teddy is my sleeping partner.
Every night I pull him close and fall asleep with my head resting against the left side of his little armless chest. I cuddle with him. Closely.
Maybe that sounds strange for a grown man.
I don’t care.
There is something extraordinarily comforting about holding something that has been with you longer than anyone alive today has known you.
Teddy knows the whole story.
He was there before computers, before careers, before marriages and children and grandchildren, before triumphs, mistakes, heartbreaks, adventures, hospitals, and all the other debris a human being collects while traveling through a lifetime.
And after everything—
here we are.
Two old guys, a little worse for wear, sharing a bed.
Tonight I’ll put my head on his chest again.
And Teddy and I will go to sleep together.
My Partner.
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