To Care Bear

Dear…

It’s been a while since I saw you—
but you are never far.
Not really.
Because I carry you,
friend,
in my heart.

You are the quiet echo
in the room after the laughter fades,
the warmth that lingers
long after your voice goes still.

You remind me of a girl I once knew—
not in face,
but in spirit.
She was soft where the world was sharp,
brave without needing to shout,
and full of wonder
that didn’t ask for permission.

No one tells us
that growing older
feels like winter
trespassing in June—
or that January
sometimes gleams
too harsh to feel like home.

We don’t speak
of the day we left her behind.
Not really.
Not even to ourselves.
But sometimes—
I see her in you.
In the way you listen.
In how you stay.

You, my friend,
are a quiet miracle.
A warm corner
in the draft of my life.

And when you dip low,
I feel it—
the tilt of your gravity,
the hush of your weight
pressing into silence
I’d nearly forgotten.

You pulled me from the wreckage—
not with fanfare,
but with grace.
With humor.
With those eyes that say
“don’t mess with my people.”

You never hesitate
to steady me.

And just like your namesake—
Bears hibernate.
And so do you.
Not from sleep,
but from noise.
From chaos.
From people who don’t know
how to sit
with silence.

Because grief
has many disguises—
and one of them
is stillness.

Secret pain
is a pain of secrets—
elegant,
complicated,
wrapped in strength
and softness.
Secrets that settle
like dust
on forgotten things.

And when Care Bear
comes out to play—
when you rise with that spark,
when the room shifts
because you arrived—
don’t let us miss it.

That’s joy.
That’s medicine.
That’s the kiss of sunlight
we forgot we needed.

We live.
We retreat.
We spiral,
then find ourselves again.

But oh—
how easy it is
to disappear into function.
To laugh in rooms
where you’re quietly unraveling,
and call that
adulthood.

Still,
you hold the magic.

So promise me—
don’t vanish.
Not all the way.

You are a falling star—
not fading,
just traveling.
Still burning
in the hands
of those lucky enough
to call you friend.

We may have buried her—
the bright-eyed dreamer—
beneath deadlines and disappointments.
But you?

You are still
a living story.
Not a fairytale—
something better.

A reckoning.
A revival.
A soft resurrection
in grown-up skin.

So here’s to you,
Care Bear—
not a cartoon,
but a constellation.
Stitched with laughter and scars,
wild-hearted and whole,
and still—
so full of light.

With love always,

Me.

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