It had been chosen to play a part in one of love’s more benign conspiracies, one woven out of sight, that would touch all of us. And so it slept contented, knowing that this winter was not meant to last forever and that, like us, it need not fear the darkness in which it was now kept. After all, it was a bear.

I suppose it could have been anything, fallen coins, keys, or one of the many notes she made to herself that day that had my wife rifling beneath the seats of my father’s old truck (we had the use of it for a few weeks). Having been a private duty nurse for years and being a mother of two sons, she was not shy in the face of such a challenge, of the indelicate probe. With a will that was as unflinching as it was casual and unconcerned she reached sightless into the carpeted wastelands that existed underneath those seats.

Her search was interrupted because of something she found, something soft and oddly shaped, toylike. When she pulled it free she discovered that it was a small stuffed bear, a creature covered completely with a smooth red hide, with twin black shiny plastic bulbs for eyes and a round black nose of felt. Her first reaction was kind of a chuckle, warm and knowing, and though I admit that I can only guess at that, I know her well enough to be safe in adding it to the record of this adventure without spoiling the truth of it.

It seemed to come from nowhere, a mysterious breed. Held between its paws and suspended above its head was a heart shaped pillow of purple with the word ‘HEART’ stitched upon it in gold letters. The poor thing was permanently fixed in this odd position with unseen bits of thread. A seated posture was perhaps a gesture by its creator to give the bear some relief from the discomfort of keeping its arms elevated.

Tied around its neck with a thin red ribbon was a small clear plastic box that had within it an assortment of candy, wrapped in foil, sealed in reflective reds and blues, hard candy I would guess (better for hibernating), for it seemed to be wrapped too loosely to be chocolate. The word ‘HUG’ was printed on a brightly colored label on the front of the little box.

I’ll have to admit, there didn’t seem to be much poetry to the bear. ‘HEART’ and ‘HUG’. (Who writes this stuff?) But then, who’s to say? It was all a part of the conspiracy. His art was not to be found in words. The real music was deeper. And like all things that enchant, there was something hidden from us. Looking back on it now, the creatures lack of poetry is the very thing that made it sing so sweetly.

The bear couldn’t have been very old nor did it seem to be one of those accidental or forgotten things that are common to the underbelly of our car seats, things that may hide for years in the company of unspent change and dirty and broken bits of lifesavers, small, grimy and indistinguishable things that fall unnoticed in the abyss. The bear was but a visitor, not at all a common resident of that tiny, forgotten, and shadowy world.

It was approaching April when the discovery was made and we became aware that this was a gift my father had intended to give my mother on Valentine’s Day, therefore, the bear could have only been settled in its present habitat but a matter of weeks, enough for one brief season of hibernation. The creature seemed too new and supple, too dustless to have been there for any long period of time.

Whatever it was that my wife had been looking for, the search itself was abandoned. She called my mother immediately. There was no suggestion of unkindness in the call and yet when my mother heard the report she wept.

Her grief was rekindled with the swift and brutal awareness that this was his final gift. With a clarity that was immediate and unstoppable she was overcome by memories that swept upon her in endless procession, of the little gifts and tributes, trophies of his adoration he had given her in their many years together that now peopled her shelves, that stood fearlessly and conspicuously upon her tables, that hung like banners upon the refrigerator door and within the vast reserves of her broken heart.

He had purchased the bear just when the Valentine items were fresh on the racks in the stores, some time early in January, at the deflation of all things as the holidays pass, during that gray and empty time.

Christmas has its reindeer. Thanksgiving, the unfortunate turkey. Easter has its bunny and the curious chick here and there. But what about Valentine’s Day? It has no creature representation. Why not a bear? No, it doesn’t perform the mythical feats as its holiday counterparts do, but there is more kinship to bears and love than we suspect. Anyway, it’s a good argument.

It’s not so hard to see how it may have happened. As a child I remember times like this. With my father there were more than a few. Of course, my silence would cost him; a bag of m&ms, a peanut butter cup, ice cream... How easily I could be distracted. Having been a ‘healthy’ child (the word of choice) ‘chunky’, ‘husky’, you get the picture, I was easily bought at the price of chocolate.

In his later years, there was a restlessness that could be detected, a product of the idle time imposed upon him since his retirement. His only defence was to become a wanderer, empowered by desire and unrest. The hunter-gatherer, an explorer, who loped about in malls, in drugstores, in out-of-the-way shops, ever watchful, vigilant.

It was along one of the many aisles, perhaps from some proud and towering height, from some quiet and unsuspecting promontory, a shelf where it perched, that the bear drew him into his power. There was probably little struggle, if any. My father was easy prey. He would smile. He would muse. He would lose himself in some sweet busyness of his mind. Something would awaken within him. Wheels would turn, and with some strategy already at work, he usually forgot about time altogether and perhaps the reason he had been there in the first place (if indeed there was one). I knew him too well to doubt this.

It bought back the time for him, in a deliciousness of thought. He knew there would be no small return for his stealth, for the moment of surprise, for the moment in which she would discover the thing beside her plate at the breakfast table, or as it sat proudly upon her favorite chair, or upon the tray with her coffee he would bring her that morning, on Valentine’s day. It was his way.

These occasions were not uncommon in the 56 years they had been together. He knew she loved these little events. He knew she loved him for it. He gave little things to her with unceasing regularity and yet never failed to evoke a warm and authentic sense of surprise.

When we became conscious of what had just happened, of what this all meant, our sorrow quickened and returned undiminished. Though it had become quiet, it was now awakened, the grief that had slowly begun to detach itself, that had submerged just beneath our soft and quilted surfaces, that was rediscovered lurking in the tiny shadow that the little creature cast among us.

And it took the furry and undaunted mettle of a bear, a commendable courage. Here we were, some eight weeks or so after my father’s death, having come to at least some primary level of acceptance of our loss, when we found ourselves at the mercy of this inanimate thing, this stuffed and mindless thing, held together stitch and seam with thread and sundry unseen things, whose squat sinews were more than capable of turning the great wheel of our sorrow around once and painfully again.

My father died that winter, in January, in a quiet and unforeseen early morning, as we slept, perhaps as we dreamed. An ordinary day. The bear, too, was sleeping, hidden from us. But he had something to tell us, to awaken in us, a word he was destined to proclaim in its inevitable and appointed time. He was a messenger, our little Jonah in the belly of the beast awaiting his day of flight from the hidden springs beneath us. Love’s cuddling prophet hidden just beneath our gaze, found in the shadows of the things my father left behind.

What does this creature say to us? Only this: that love is ceaseless, deathless, that love is never quiet, that it never truly slumbers, that love’s voice sings as sweet in sorrow, that something precious lies undiscovered in our darkness, that love cannot be confined forever beneath the soft and quilted surfaces where sorrow may seek its quieting place. That grief must have its full course, that it must feed at our tables till it be satisfied, that death cannot stay the hand of love, nor is it cruel or unkind for it will give its gifts to us far beyond the finalities of the grave.