My father died without warning when I was only ten years old. The last thing he ever gave me was a little brown teddy bear that sang a lullaby whenever you pressed its paw.<\/p>\n
For years, I couldn’t bear to touch it.<\/p>\n
It sat on a shelf through childhood, college, my wedding, and eventually the birth of my own son.<\/p>\n
When he turned seven, I decided it was time to pass it on.<\/p>\n
The batteries had long since died, so I carefully unzipped the back, expecting nothing more than a dusty compartment.<\/p>\n
Instead, tucked beside the battery box was a tiny folded envelope, yellowed with age.<\/p>\n
My hands shook as I unfolded it.<\/p>\n
On the front, in my father’s unmistakable handwriting, were four simple words:<\/p>\n
“For when you’re ready.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Inside was a handwritten letter.<\/p>\n “If you’re reading this, then you’ve kept this little bear longer than I ever imagined. I’m sorry I won’t be there to watch you grow up, but I hope you always know how proud I am of you. Be kind when it’s hard. Tell the truth when it’s costly. Hug your children every chance you get. And never doubt for a second that you were loved beyond words.”<\/em><\/p>\n There was one more surprise.<\/p>\n Taped inside the envelope was a tiny photograph of the two of us at the park, along with the silver guitar pick he always carried in his pocket.<\/p>\n My son looked up at me and asked, \u201cGrandpa left that just for you?\u201d<\/p>\n Unable to hold back the tears, I smiled and whispered, \u201cNo… I think he left it so I’d know he never really left at all.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My father died without warning when I was only ten years old. The last thing he ever gave me was a little brown teddy bear that sang a lullaby whenever you pressed its paw. For years, I couldn’t bear to touch it. It sat on a shelf through childhood, college, my wedding, and eventually the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7946"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7948,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7946\/revisions\/7948"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storypulls.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}