SALEM, N.H. — A Massachusetts family on vacation in New Hampshire last week lost their beloved Teddy bear, aptly named Teddy, somewhere between Warren and Salem, New Hampshire.
In a desperate hunt to find him and bring him home safely, the Shaw family is turning to the public with pleas for help. They especially are appealing to people who may have been in the lower level parking lot of The Mall of Rockingham Park where he might have fallen out of the car, they said.
“I grew close to this patient as he neared the end of his journey and the family took him to Alaska as an end-of-life trip,” said Abby Shaw, who knew the patient as a child. “He remembered me on that trip and had been talking to his family about me and brought me home this Teddy bear.”
The white bear has been with Shaw, now 30, every day for the last 25 years. It was gifted to her in 2002 by Buzzy, a World War II veteran, in his last years of life battling dementia.
Shaw’s mom worked at a VA hospital in Massachusetts where Buzzy was living in the dementia unit, she said. Every day of the summer and after school during the school year, she’d visit him. They’d play games and color together. He taught her how to play chess and use an abacus.
Buzzy died in his 80s a few years after gifting the bear to Shaw.
“From the day he brought it home until last week, Teddy has been with my family,” Shaw said. “I slept with him every night until six-and-a-half years ago when my daughter was born and I reluctantly passed him along to her.”
Growing up as an only child and one of the only children in her neighborhood, Shaw relied on Teddy for comfort, companionship and friendship. He traveled with her to school and on vacations and was there through her through her parents’ divorce, her father’s cancer diagnosis and her pregnancies.
On Aug. 14, the Shaw family left their timeshare in the White Mountains and drove to the Warren Hatchery where Shaw’s daughter, Aubrey, brought Teddy with her to feed the fish. Back in the car, Teddy sat on Aubrey’s lap on their drive to The Mall at Rockingham Park.
Aubrey didn’t bring Teddy inside, Shaw said, and when they unpacked their bags at home, Teddy was nowhere to be found.
“It’s not been great at home. There have been a lot of tears,” Shaw said. “There are so many worse things in the world that it feels silly, but those first few nights, neither of us slept.”
Shaw thinks Teddy might have fallen out of the car when the family stopped at the mall, she said. Maybe someone put him somewhere up high to keep him safe or another family with children found him and brought him home.
Teddy looks very well loved and has off-white, scruffy fur, solid black eyes and a sewn-on tan nose.
“We would just love to have him back,” Shaw said.
Anyone with information is asked to email the Shaw family at findteddy814@gmail.com.