I bought my daughter Emily a giant white teddy bear, and it became our ritual for every truck trip. After she died, it was the only thing I couldn’t let go. Last week, something inside it cracked.
I used to think grief came with sirens and shouting.
Mine came with mileage and coffee breath.
Ten years ago I was broke, new to trucking, and desperate to impress my daughter, Emily. She was turning four and wanted a bear “as big as me.” On a dusty flea market lot outside Dayton, I found a huge white teddy with one eye slightly higher.
The seller, Linda, saw my wallet and said, “Ten bucks, dad price.” Emily hugged it and named him Snow. Like he was my whole world, too.
Emily turned Snow into a ritual.
Every time I left for a long haul, she carried him to my truck, arms straining, and ordered, “Buckle him in.” I did, seatbelt across his belly.
At night the cab hummed, and that lopsided face kept the loneliness from fully landing. When I rolled back into town, Emily sprinted down the driveway and snatched him up. “See,” she’d say, “he protected you.” I’d tap the bear’s head and answer, “Good job, partner.”
Even when she got older, she still packed him for me, calling it dumb.
Her mom, Sarah, never liked the bear in the cab. She said it made me childish, like I needed a mascot to be a parent. Truth was, I needed anything that felt like home.
Sarah and I didn’t blow up.
We wore out. I was gone, she was tired, and our conversations turned into invoices. The divorce papers were signed when Emily was 12.
Emily tried to smile for both houses, but her eyes always searched mine first.
She still handed me Snow before every trip, quietly, like a truce. Sometimes Sarah watched from porch and said nothing at all.
Cancer showed up the year she turned thirteen, first as bruises and tired days, then as hospital ceilings. Emily hated being pitied.
She cracked jokes at nurses, named her IV pole “R2-Drip2,” and demanded I bring Snow to every appointment.
One late night, when the hallway lights buzzed, she squeezed my hand and said, “Promise you’ll keep driving.” I tried to argue. She stared me down and insisted:
I promised, because that is what fathers do when their kid asks like that.
Two weeks later she was gone, and the promise felt like a chain to my ribs.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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