When my ex was nine years old, his mother decided that he was too old to keep a teddy bear. She made him take the stuffed bear out, put it in the trash barrel, and burn it. In my mind I could see him standing there in the smoke of the fire, a boy watching his teddy bear burn. My heart hurt for him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Yet she was a good person, a traditional oldtime Italian mom whose His father was like that too. He didn’t want his son to be soft. Back when my ex was a boy in high school he dislocated his hip They were good people. I don’t mean this to be critical. The reason They live on in my memory, imperfections and all. Imperfections give I doubt that the teddy bear story is shared by my ex with many or Snicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When my ex was nine years old, his mother decided that he was too old to keep a teddy bear. She made him take the stuffed bear out, put it in the trash barrel, and burn it. In my mind I could see him standing there in the smoke of the fire, a boy watching…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nmother came over from the Old Country. They didn’t like letting boys be
\nsoft. Soft might be a boy who kept a teddy bear too long. Then there
\nwas the time he came home crying because some boys had bullied him. She
\ndidn’t comfort him. She scolded him for crying and told him to stand up
\nto them.<\/p>\n
\nSometimes his father was insensitive, amazingly insensitive. He knew
\nwhere there was a hornet’s nest in a hedge but didn’t warn his son and
\nacted as though it was funny when he saw his son put his hand in there
\nand get stung.<\/p>\n
\nplaying football. They called his father to come and get him. His son
\nwas lying on the field, unable to stand up. His father stood at the
\nedge of the field near the car, waving his hand for his son to get to
\nthe car. As though he could.<\/p>\n
\nI am describing how they were is because these are people that 99.9% of
\nthose who knew them would describe as good parents and as good people.
\nBut they weren’t perfect people. When they died, they were mourned and
\nI am sure they are missed. I’ve missed them and was happy to know them.\n<\/p>\n
\na color to life. They aren’t always beautiful but they add texture and
\ndepth. They are the stuff of good comedy, the meat of tragedy, the
\nbasis of Shakespeare’s plays. They are the stuff of our sitcoms, they
\ngive our comedians a reason to get out on stage. Where would we be
\nwithout our imperfections? There would be less to gasp at and be
\nappalled by but also less to laugh at. What a bland textureless world
\nit would be. <\/p>\n
\nany people but I hope that he and his sister and brother reminisce
\nabout the old days when their parents were alive and were aggravating,
\ninsensitive, and loveable all in the same day. There was a lot to laugh
\nabout and some to groan about . Some of the worst stories of the good
\nbad old days make the best stories to share later when you can enjoy
\nthe laughter and commiserate with others over the stories that make you
\ncry.<\/p>\n