This is not my Paddington, but you get the idea.
Yesterday, before I woke up, I dreamt I spoke with a friend I haven't spoken to for many years. I hadn't been able to look her up over the years because I don't know what name she used after she was divorced, and so we had lost touch.
When I was a young girl, I graduated from high school at sixteen and went on to college. A young man I dated was friends with many people from other colleges and so I met a woman I will call Carole. My boyfriend had been a mutual friend of Carole and her husband. Carole was a college student from a wealthy family who had married into a wealthy family. She was navigating learning to be a wife while going to college, while also being a twenty something with friends. I remember her as particularly kind and generous. She once tried to lend me her Mercedes while my car was being repaired.
I became a friend and confidante to Carole, and she became a slightly older friend and chief "encourager" to me. Life was hard for us both. I was navigating being the youngest person in my college class and having family issues, and she was navigating being a young wife to a man she didn't understand. We did our best to support each other. However, I was young enough not to be able to offer much more than encouragement myself.
Before long these days ended. I moved and attended a different college, and she admitted that her husband was abusive, and she moved away before finally getting a divorce. We spoke in notes a few more times, but last time we spoke she had a new job and new life, and I wasn't sure whether I would be a reminder of those tough days with her first marriage.
In the busy years that followed we lost touch. Over the years, I have thought about her from time to time, but I have not been sure what last name she used after her divorce, or whether she remarried afterward.
In my dream yesterday morning, she told me "My name is Stevenson. I use my maiden name".
That morning, I looked up the woman I will call "Carole Stevenson" for the purpose of this post. There she was. After relocating, my friend had become a businesswoman. She married briefly and had a daughter. She was divorced again and moved to another state. Eventually, her daughter grew up, married, and had a son. My friend was diagnosed with cancer and was taken care of by her second former husband until her death last year. In her obituary was a lovely fairly recent picture that was so clearly the woman I had known all those years ago.
The really funny thing about this is that one December, she and I went shopping in Morristown, New Jersey. I believe it was Bamberger's that had the large Paddington bear with the hat, the raincoat, and wellington boots. I remember commenting that I loved Paddington and that I had read all the stories as a child. The bear was a fortune and so I didn't give it any thought. Carole must have returned another day and bought it for me, because she gave it to me in a large shopping bag as a Christmas present that year. The bear was not only cherished by me, but it lived on a shelf in every one of my children's rooms at some time or another through the years. It is still a point of fascination for my grandson.
I don't understand how Carole could have been young, lived an entire life, and died, and I could have grandchildren now, and Paddington Bear looks as new as he did that first day in Bamberger's.
Carole, you have been missed from my life, but I was happy to trade your presence if it meant a new start and chance for happiness for you. I will always remember you fondly.
