This is Blue Ted and he has been with me my whole life. In fact, this is the only memento I have from childhood. I have so many rich and special memories with Blue Ted and I’ve had to rescue him on so many occasions. There was the time my mum teasingly held him overboard on the ferry to Mull, wondering what would happen if she accidentally dropped him. I still remember frantically reaching for him to the point I nearly fell overboard myself. I can still feel the spray and wind in my face from that moment.
And then who can forget the time I left Blue Ted taking in the views across Oban at MacCaig’s Folley. I had reached the bottom of the steps on the way back to the car when I realised to my horror I was no longer holding Blue Ted. I ran all the way back up those stone steps calling out to him as if he was a lost child. A kind American couple was making their way back down the steps with him, hoping to find the child that had left him behind. “Is this who you’re looking for?” the kindly old guy waved him in front of me. I was so thankful, so grateful to that couple. I would have been devastated to reach the Folley to find Blue Ted gone.
Blue Ted’s been at weddings and important moments in my life, but the memory I treasure the most is my mum repairing him as a final gift to me before she died. He’s had some extensive cosmetic surgery over the years (who am I to judge). He’s needed new eyes and he’s onto his third or fourth nose and he’s been re-stuffed more than once. My mum was always the one to put him back together again. There was a year or two there where Blue Ted looked like he’d been living rough on the street and all thought to his appearance had gone out the window. Not a bit of him was hanging the right way and one of his eyes rested upon his little blue cheek.
When I look at Blue Ted now, I think about the comfort he’s brought me in life, but I also think about the quiet moments my mum must have spent ‘fixing him’ for me – knowing this would be the last time she would fix Blue Ted. It was a very deliberate act of love from my mum. She didn’t find it easy to say words like ‘I love you’ – even at the end – but she did her best to show me.
As I’m called to take him down from my shelf to reflect on the old days, I feel my mum move close and tell me she was fixing him up to make sure he was going to last the distance throughout the rest of my life. After all, she knew how useless I was with a needle and thread. But I know it was so much more than the practicalities. I can hear the song ‘Fix You’ by Cold Play and I know my mother’s Spirit is close by – walking with me through new and scary terrain on this never-ending healing journey. She reminds me the darkness isn’t just full of the sad or painful memories, it’s full of the discarded moments that were meant to be cherished but somehow became tarnished, overshadowed and lost.
I moved Blue Ted off his pedestal shelf onto the Treatment Couch in the studio today. I feel drawn to the comforting, loving and wise energy. For the first time I see, he’s been imbued, infused with a mother’s love for her child. The beautiful memories far outweigh the sadness so I will cherish those and sit with those for a while.
Tears stream down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace …
... Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you
© Coldplay Fix You
Do you have a memento or toy from your childhood? What memories does that toy evoke? Why have you held on to that toy for so long? Here’s something I felt compelled to write this morning – free flow just as the words came … What will you write about?