Memoir of a Teddy Bear

Her name was Amelia, and I loved her.

I watched as the doctor disconnected her life support and wished I had been made with the ability to cry. Her arms still wrapped around me and holding me tight gradually grew colder as the warmth and last lingering traces of life left her, and it truly started to sink into my processors that my beloved owner was gone. That smile that always dazzled me, that laugh that had always warmed my circuits, it was all gone. She would never clutch me to her chest in bed at night, never whisper girlish secrets into my fuzzy ears, or sit me across from her as she held a tea party ever again. My entire reason for existing was gone.

I could still remember the day when she had opened the box I was in, and my programmed greeting. “Hello, I am Ted-E 157689. Are you my registered owner?”

She had giggled and nodded. “Hello Teddy! My name is Amelia, and I hope we can be friends!”

I had opened my little stubby arms wide and proclaimed “Yes, that is my primary function, Miss Amelia. I am fully programmed to be a companion for so long as you desire me to be.”

That had been the start. My first official day as a teddy bear friend for a charming little girl who had just turned five. We had spent hours playing as I got to know her, and tailored my personality to suit her. She had dragged me everywhere and showed me off to the other children at her birthday party. I was just a bargain priced robot teddy bear, but she had treated me like I had been constructed of gold.

I’d been programmed to expect that I would probably only have a few years of service before I’d be replaced with a newer model, or simply set aside as she grew older, but those expectations had never been met. Even as she had grown into a teenager, I was still treated as her most cherished treasure. When my exterior covering had grown worn, she’d replaced it. When my servos wore out, she’d fix them. She’d even taken a robotics repair course in high school just to be able to maintain me long past my warrantee. I had asked her once why she was so intent on keeping me functional. All she had done was shrugged and said “because you’re my best friend, Teddy.”

When she had gone off to college, she’d taken me along to her dorm room. I’d met her roommate, and eventually even her various boyfriends. Even when people had criticized her for still owning an obsolete Ted-E bot, she’d just smile and say “he’s my best friend and I will never abandon him.”

It wasn’t until she had graduated college as a robotics engineer that I found out how serious she was about that. Over the course of her next few years of employment, she’d gradually rebuilt and upgraded me until my mechanical parts were of the highest quality, and replaced my obsolete processor with a high end AI chip. But she always made sure to keep all of my memories intact.

The years had gone by, and she had eventually married, and I had stood by in a special chair just for me dressed in a tiny tuxedo, after which she had laughingly placed me on my shelf by the bed in her new home and placed a little blindfold on me, giggling I was too innocent to watch her wedding night shenanigans. For my part, I had also dutifully engaged a sound filter so that the noises wouldn’t be recorded in my audio logs.

There had been good times, hard times, and even the occasional bad times. She’d worried with her husband when the economy had collapsed, struggled with rebuilding a life in a new nation after the fall of America, and finally become a moderately successful robot maker in the new society, creating all kinds of small toys for the children she loved. But through it all, she had kept a little bit of the small girl she had once been.

And she had kept me. The simple teddy bear she called her best friend.

Right up to the last day of her life.

I looked at her peaceful face, then down at the heart shaped locket she had worn ever since her daughter had given it to her. It showed an old photo of her and her family. She was hugging her husband as they both smiled with their daughter…

… and me, held tightly in her daughter’s arms.

I finally turned and walked to the edge of the bed. Amelia’s daughter and granddaughter gave me a sad smile. “Thank you for being with her in her last hours, Grandfather Bear.”

“She was my first best friend, Emmy. I am glad I could be here for her. I will always remember her for so long as I exist.”

“You’ll stay my best friend won’t you, Grandpa Bear?” Sarah, Amelia’s granddaughter asked as she gently picked me up and hugged me.

“Of course, Sarah. For as long as you want me.”

“I’ll always want you, Grandpa Bear.”

I looked back at the bed and thought to myself, Thank you Amelia. Thank you for giving a simple machine like me a family to be a part of.

For that, Amelia, I will always love you.