Charlotte & Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles

Charlotte and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles went everywhere together. They were inseparable. Where Charlotte went, there Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles went with her.

That wasn’t his given name—Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles, I mean—but it was the name Charlotte had given to him. And for that, he liked his name. She had named him such because he was rather fuzzy and extremely cuddly, of course. The “mister” made him feel dignified and important. And he was, to Charlotte. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles had been a gift from Charlotte’s grandma, years and years ago. And ever since then, Charlotte and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles were never too far apart.

Before he’d met her, he’d sat on a high shelf gathering dust in an already quite dusty shop. Before Charlotte, Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles had given up hope of ever leaving that dusty shelf. Before Charlotte, Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles had no purpose.

That all changed when the shop bell clanged and Charlotte’s grandma strode in, purse clutched tightly in hand. She wanted a stuffed bear for her granddaughter, she told the old shopkeeper, but not one of those fancy new ones. One of those older bears, one that would last.

The old shopkeeper paused and then nodded. He had just the thing for her. The wooden ladder on its track rolled noisily as the man pushed it over to Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ shelf. He wasn’t Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles then, of course. Until Charlotte, he had no name.

The old bear with no name—who was quite dusty—was taken down from the shelf and brought over to Charlotte’s grandma. She eyed the bear sharply and then nodded shortly. “He’ll do,” she told the old shopkeeper and paid him for the old bear.

As they left the shop together, Charlotte’s grandma held on to Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles carefully, almost lovingly. “I had a bear like you, once,” she told him, “When I was a little girl. Years and years ago that was.

“But not too many years, mind you,” she told the bear sharply. “We would go on wonderful adventures, my bear and I. I don’t know what happened to my old bear. He’s gone now. I grew up and forgot about such things. I got married; had a family. I had a little girl, and now she has a child of her own as well—my granddaughter.

“I don’t want my granddaughter to forget the things I forgot.” Her eyes were serious as she looked into Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ eyes. Neither blinked. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ eyes were black buttons, of course, but still. “Because life is hard and growing up can be difficult. The world can be a frightening place, after all.”

The old woman stared at the old bear with memories of the past in her eyes. Some painful, some filled with joy. “But such things are never quite so bad if you don’t go through them alone,” she told the old bear softly.

“And that’s where you come in,” she said. “You must protect her and take care of her. She will need you, my dear little granddaughter. Promise me you’ll do that for her, won’t you?”

Charlotte’s grandma examined the old bear’s black-button eyes to see if she could see his answer therein. She nodded, satisfied, as if she’d heard his unspoken answer. She hadn’t, of course, but she would have been happy to know that Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles promised he would.

Charlotte’s grandma brought him with her to the hospital—after giving him a thorough washing which he desperately needed—on her visit to see her granddaughter for the first time. And that was the first time Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles saw Charlotte as well. Small, she was. Swaddled in cloth and held by a tired but glowing mother. Charlotte wailed, a tiny pathetic cry, and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles knew. This was why he was here.

Charlotte’s grandma smiled down at her crying granddaughter and then held out the old bear to the child. She was too small yet, too young to see the old bear, much less hold on to him, but her grandma placed the old bear next to the child, and somehow, she knew. The crying stopped. Charlotte’s grandma smiled.

And from that day on, Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles found his purpose. He was with Charlotte every day, an ever-present companion for her. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles was there with Charlotte for everything, for all the moments, good and bad. He was with her when she woke up and cried in the night, right next to her in the crib. He felt her tiny hand holding onto his fuzzy paw with a strong grip, and they both knew then that they weren’t alone.

It was incredible, watching Charlotte grow, and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles was there for every second of it.

She started making sounds, and from those sounds came words, such wonderful, magical words. From those garbled words came words that Charlotte’s parents could understand—though Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles was always able to understand Charlotte, even when she was speaking “gibberish.”

For a time, Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles had a different name. For a brief while, he was “Boo”, which he figured was meant to be “bear”, and he didn’t mind too much, all things considered, while Charlotte was learning to speak.

Each day, it seemed, she knew more and more words and began combining them in different ways, stringing them along in sentences that only made sense to her—and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles—as she figured out how words worked.

She was a toddler when she gave him his rightful name. She sat him down underneath a flashlight-lit blanket fort and looked at him with all the seriousness a three-year-old could muster. “You are my bear and my friend,” she told him. He knew all this but listened all the same. “You need a name. You are fuzzy. You like to cuddle with me.” Those were both true things. “Your name is Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles.” And from that moment on, he was.

He heard her peals of laughter as she giggled and crawled around the house, dragging him along. He didn’t mind being dragged; he could get bumped but he certainly couldn’t get bruised. He was there when Charlotte took her first wobbly steps, and her parents watched with prideful delight.

Once Charlotte could walk, then she and Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles could go on real adventures. The house was as vast as the outside world to them, and every place they went, a new exciting journey. The only places they couldn’t go were the Gated Lands. Those, of course, were off-limits. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles was there when Charlotte tried to climb over that high, wooden woven fence. He tried to stop her, but she was determined to travel into the great unknown of the Gated Lands.

And he was there when Charlotte’s mom found them, hanging halfway up, one leg over on the other side. She’d yelled then, and Charlotte had cried. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles knew Charlotte’s mom was just worried; she didn’t want Charlotte to fall and get hurt.

Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles sat next to Charlotte in a time-out.

That happened, on occasion. More than once, to be honest, as Charlotte grew. There was the time Charlotte’s dad saw them trying to reach into the cookie jar, balanced precariously on a stack of books that wobbled and leaned. There was the time Charlotte’s mom caught them trying to draw on the wall with a permanent marker in hand, literally red-handed. In Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ mind, Charlotte was an exceptional artist, and her mom’s reaction was unwarranted.

But for as many times that the two of them got in trouble, there were so many more good times that they had. They did everything together. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles liked playing with Charlotte. As she grew, together they would fight dragons, explore enchanted woods, outwit dangerous wizards, and have such delightful tea parties.

He was there when Charlotte fell and skinned her knee. He held her hand as her mom cleaned out the wound, and suddenly, the scrape didn’t feel quite as bad. And Charlotte held Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ paw when some of his stuffing began to show and her mom stitched him back together again. Charlotte told him he was very brave. And Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles thought of how fortunate he was to have a friend like Charlotte.

Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles began to forget his time on that high shelf in the old shopkeeper’s store—the long and lonely days before Charlotte’s grandma came and bought him. He forgot what that had been like because he was with Charlotte, and he was happy. Charlotte was his whole world, and he was hers.

Charlotte kept on growing. And still, the two of them remained the best of friends. She told him everything and he listened. She told him of her hopes and dreams. She told him of her fears and insecurities. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles was good at listening.

Those started to change as Charlotte grew. Where once Charlotte dreamed of fighting dragons, dancing with fairies, and flying through the air on a magical carpet, now her dreams were becoming more grounded, and less childlike.

Her fears of monsters under her bed and in her closet—which Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles bravely fought and valiantly slew for her—and still more monsters in the dark house at night—Charlotte was afraid of a lot of monsters—those fears changed too. They became more real and adult-like.

And Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles didn’t know how he could help her anymore. He began to see that Charlotte was growing up. She was changing, day by day. And Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles, well, he was still the same. He realized something that even Charlotte did not yet see. As she grew up, she would outgrow him.

It was painful, but it was true. As a child, Charlotte needed an old stuffed bear, to be her friend, to be with her, and to remind her that she wasn’t alone. She wouldn’t need him when she was grown.

Others would take Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles’ place in Charlotte’s life, others better suited to helping her than he. That was the way it was supposed to go. He knew that. But who would be there for him? Who would be there to tell him that he wasn’t alone?

Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles didn’t know. But he supposed it didn’t matter what became of him. Before Charlotte, he’d been gathering dust on a high shelf without any purpose whatsoever. That all changed when he met her. Charlotte had given him purpose.

He’d promised he’d be there as she grew, to protect and care for her as she did. And Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles had done that. He’d kept that promise. And for him, that was enough. That was more than enough.

Years passed. Charlotte grew up, and she forgot. She fit her possessions in the back of her car, packed in cardboard boxes. She moved away from her parents’ home and took a job in a big city.  She was an artist, and she illustrated children’s books. She loved what she did. She met and married her husband, and a few years later, their son was born.

Small, he was. And as she held her newborn son in her arms, and he wailed, a tiny pathetic cry, Charlotte remembered. It all came back to her. She wept at what she had forgotten. She wept at who she had forgotten.

She told her husband, and he left that hospital room. He headed to their home and looked in the cardboard boxes, long forgotten in the basement, gathering dust. He found what he was looking for and headed back to the hospital room. He brought back an old bear—who was in desperate need of a washing—to his wife and handed him to her. And she wept all over again as she held that fuzzy hand once more.

Charlotte held her newborn son, cradled in her arms, and she whispered to her oldest and dearest friend, “I’m sorry for forgetting you. I know I have no right to ask. But this is James. He’s my son—my sweet little baby boy. Would you protect him and care for him? Life is hard, and growing up is difficult. The world can be a frightening place, after all.”

Charlotte stared at him with tearful memories in her eyes. “I know because I remember. But things were never quite so bad because I didn’t go through them alone. I had you. Promise me you’ll be there for him, too, won’t you?”

It was like waking from a long slumber, he thought, being in darkness for so long. He’d nearly forgotten himself. He’d almost forgotten his purpose, his promise from years and years ago. But seeing Charlotte, seeing her son, it all came back to him. And he remembered. This was why he was here.

Charlotte examined those black-button eyes for a moment. And then she smiled because she knew. Mr. Fuzzy-Cuddles promised he would.

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