Bear Hugs

Sharing a true story from my blog (lifelessons-mj.blogspot.com) back in March 2010:

It was the second week of the shoot of STEP AWAY FROM THE STONE...

Things were going well & we were establishing a routine on location at the Conway Regional Hospital that involved late nites & early mornings...which meant not a lot of sleep for anyone.

My friend, Mary Hall, had arrived the week before---on Valentine's Day to be exact---to help with the movie.

Actually, that was just the excuse I used to get her here.....there were OTHER reasons....let's just say I promised her fun, excitement, adventure...& even if she didn't know it, I knew that her life was going to be touched in ways she couldn't imagine...& that she would never be the same after the experience.

I was counting on the same thing to happen to me...

She arrived on Sunday, we began shooting on Monday...and my den looked like a war-zone...a stock room...a junk pile for the next six weeks!

There were old things from the 70s that I drug down out of the attic during week one piled up in one place...boxes of paper plates, supplies, snacks were shuffled in-and-out every evening/every morning....clean clothes...dirty clothes...ok, there were just clothes everywhere for the entire 6 weeks...

...and let's not forget that Jessi was living in the den, too...the entire time.

During the shoot, pretty much all of the days were running together...& it's hard to remember what happened in what order...but it was definitely the second week...when it was decided that a teddy bear might be the PERFECT prop for one particular scene....

So I trekked back to the attic and found the humongous plastic bag full of Abbi's favorites for choices. In the bag were a wide gamut of "friends" beginning with BUNCHES --- the bear that Grami's circle of closest friends (The Wild Bunch) brought to the hospital the day she was born to the very last critter given to her by her high school friends...there was even a Gorilla that was big hit with some of the cast & extras as we spent hours entertaining ourselves between scenes.

Took the bag...the selection was made...brought the bag home...it was dropped on the floor between the kitchen & den where it sat until last weekend when I finally regained control of my house!

Days later...or maybe it was nites...all I know for sure is that it was around 3 a.m. when we limped in from a long day on the set...it seemed like minutes later it was 5 a.m. & Jessi was up fixing breakfast...planning her day.

I was too tired to think about much but we spent a couple of hours catching up before she headed out the door for work.

Figured it was almost 8 a.m. so why not stay awake & listen to my friend's radio show at 9 before taking a little nap before I had to start getting ready for the night ahead.

I love you THIS much!

Mary Hall was asleep in the bedroom...so I just left her there when the sweet little message filled the air.

I love you THIS much!

There it was again...I wondered how she managed to get her precious granddaughter to say that & then turn it into the ringtone...no matter...I knew that she was going to be very happy to wake up to a message from North Carolina...

All through the morning...at random intervals...came the Alert...the message...eventually I went to take my nap...and sometime later Mary Hall got up...it was a little after noon when we were both finally together in the den.

I love you THIS much!

There it was again. So I told her how much I loved her ringtone...how sweet it was...& that I wanted her to "send" it to me so I could have it on my phone, too! I love ringtones!

She looked at me like I had TWO HEADS. Seriously. Sleep deprivation does that to friends...trust me on this one!

I love you THIS much!

Apparently she wasn't finding it "precious"...like me...because...

She said, That's NOT my phone! It's some magnet or something on your refrigerator...

Now that was funny...actually it was hilarious!

I don't have ANY magnets on my refrigerator that "say things"!

The entire time we were having this dialogue...the voice just kept repeating it's message...

...IloveyouTHISmuch...IloveyouTHISmuch...IloveyouTHISmuch...IloveyouTHISmuch...

The hunt was on. We were determined to find WHERE it was coming from...& who was insistently telling us that we were loved...

...and there it was...in the middle of the floor...the bag of stuffed toys...of course...it was a talking bear...

So Mary Hall dived in...and she came up with a cute little bear...it was white with a red heart on its chest..when you pulled its arms apart...it boldly proclaimed:

I love you THIS much!

Funny. Ha ha. You had to PULL the arms apart in order for it to talk to you...yet it had been talking to ME all morning...untouched...without any manipulation...provocation...or encouragement from anyone!

Mystery solved. We laughed. It was funny...and one of those little stories that we would share from this time together.

The bear went back in bag...and we went about our day.

Now here's the very cool part...randomly for the next four weeks...the cute little bear would talk to me...early in the morning...late at nite...mid-afternoon...there was really no rhyme or reason to it's timing...sometimes it would just blurt out...

I love you THIS much!

Surely it was a short in the wiring...or a battery going dead...a coincidence...

Yeah, right. Everyone knows how I feel about coincidences...

Everytime the little bear talked...it reminded me of my dad. He died 25 years ago.

As a child though, that was always one of our favorite games. He would say, "How much do you love me?" and spread his arms wide...and then we would all laugh & giggle as we replied, "I love you THIS much!"

I remember one of my brothers giving him one of those little statue things of a pot-bellied man with his arms spread wide and inscribed on the base was the "I love you THIS much!" message...it sat on his bedside table for as long as I can remember...wonder what ever happened to it?!?

Mary Hall decided to stay home from the set one day...it was towards the end of the shoot...she had papers due and a mid-term exam to study for...and she needed peace, quiet, and no distractions. I guess it worked because she got 140 out of 100 on her exam!

So she was home all day...alone...because it was after Pete had left us, too. I arrived just in time for dinner. I walked in the door full of stories about my day...ready for Jessi's stories about her day...

No sooner did I enter the den came the warm greeting:

I love you THIS much!

Stunned we all turned to look at the bag of toys. No one was near it. The bear was buried under two or three others. It hadn't been touched, nudged, or acknowledged...it was simply waiting for my arrival...I guess...

Mary Hall said, Wow! It hasn't done that all day! That's the first time!

Several times throughout the evening, the cute little bear shared it's message...outloud.

Then as the days turned into nights for the rest of the shoot...the cute little bear continued to chime in from time-to-time...it was always for me...Jessi & Mary Hall heard it...but it was always for me...

One day Mary Hall decided that it wasn't fair...that she wasn't getting the "love" from the cute little bear. So she decided to embrace my fuzzy hedgehog that holds the heart that says "KISS ME"...

It sits on the shelf with the cookbooks. She disappointedly reported that she squeezed the hedgehog...heck, she even kissed it...and it never said a word!

Which is not to say that Mary Hall didn't get her share of the "love" while she was here...hers came from a wide variety of sources...awesome new friends...affirmations of lost pieces of herself...a healing in her heart where God was touching so many of her broken & bruised spots...

Sometime during the cute little bear's LOVEFEST...I asked Abbi where it came from in the first place. She really couldn't remember it... but since it "talked" we decided it must have been one of the last Valentine's gifts from Aunt Julia...

...who always loved me THIS much...

...and much, much more...