Mishka The Bear

I saw the young brown bear for the first time on Friday afternoon of my big move. It lurked in the shadow of the pine trees that fringed my property — not quite a cub, but not fully grown yet. My limited knowledge of bears suggested it was about two years old.

I was in the middle of packing the kitchen when I noticed it with my peripheral vision through the window. I stopped in my tracks. I'd seen deer, hares, skunks, and raccoons on my property before and had a never-ending war with squirrels living in my attic, but a bear? I knew they were out there, after all I lived close to the Canadian border, but never saw one in person before. So close!

It seemed to be watching me, clumsily stealing glances while hiding behind a large tree. Its fur shimmered with the bronze of the late afternoon light, and its eyes, curious and old, met mine with an intelligence that startled me. Just a week before, I'd sold the house. Movers were scheduled for Monday.

I hope it doesn't come inside. I've seen too many reels with bears making themselves at home in people's houses and the path of destruction they left behind. I need to leave this house intact for its future owners.

I went back to packing, watching the bear out of the corner of my eye. It wasn’t mine, of course. Not legally. I don't even know if there's a legal way to own a bear. It had wandered in from God knows where — the forest preserve maybe, or deeper beyond. Maybe Canada? I snapped a couple of pictures with my iPhone. The bear didn't seem to mind, even came out a little, as if posing for me.

Out of my own safety concerns and the bear's (is it even old enough to survive on its own?), I made a call to the Wildlife Rescue. I texted them the pictures. They were excited as apparently bears in that area went nearly extinct. They promised a pickup on Monday. Couldn't come out earlier with the weekend coming. Special arrangements needed to be made, apparently.

So now both the movers and the rescuers will be here on Monday. That's my luck, everything on the last day. I'll just hope it simply goes back to wherever it came from.

But the weekend slipped by, and the bear made itself at home in my back yard. I started calling it Mishka. I'm Russian, after all. Mishka is the only name choice for a bear in my culture. Don't ask me why I decided it was a male.

Still in the process of packing, I rarely saw him directly. Mishka melted between trees like smoke, showed up at dusk to drink from the retention pond, once knocked over my compost bin and sat chewing a pineapple rind that spilled from it. Like a child with a toy. I’d catch glimpses of him from the kitchen window — a flick of muscle, a huff of breath, the crunch of branches under his steps. Mishka wasn’t menacing as he didn't make an attempt to come into the house or approach me. But he wasn’t tame either.

By Monday, I’d packed up the last of the living room and donated most of my plants. The movers came and loaded my stuff. One of them asked if I had a bear on my property. I just shrugged, like I don't know. No one had come for Mishka that day. Many calls to Wildlife Rescue went unanswered.

I was moving across state lines — new job, new house, new life. With the movers taking care of my stuff, I was just going to drive my car to my new town. At 4 pm, I made another attempt to reach the Wildlife Rescue and left another voice mail: "It's urgent, I'm leaving tomorrow." No call back.

Sleeping on the air mattress that night (I didn't want to drive in the dark and decided to leave next morning), I kept telling myself I couldn't take the bear with me. I don't even know why I was having that thought in the first place.

But Tuesday came, and still no rescue by noon, I found myself walking out with a loaf of bread, calling out, “You’re coming with me, aren’t you?”

Mishka stepped out of the woods slowly, warily but also deliberately, as if he understood.

I don't have a cage. I wouldn't want to cage him anyway. God knows what kind of instincts caging would wake in Mishka.

I opened the back door of my car. “Only if you behave,” I said.

Mishka climbed in, in two slow but smooth moves of his front and back paws. I thought he was purposefully careful not to damage my car seat faux leather. Watching him from the back, I could clearly see he was male.

The drive was surreal. I watched Mishka in the rearview mirror, heart hammering, half-expecting it to lunge forward and end me on I-79 or I-81, dashing into the Appalachian woods after. But he didn’t. He sat calmly, head tilted, mostly gazing out the window. Like a big fluffy dog. Once, I rolled the window down and Mishka stuck his head and tongue out, like a big happy dog in the movies. The cars behind me started honking and I rolled the window back up, leaving a crack, just enough to let the wind in.

I pulled over three times for fuel and food. Every time, I politely asked Mishka to lay and stay down in the seat so no one could see him. Surprisingly, he obeyed. A couple of times, I got off the road and let him out in a deserted area to do his business. He strutted out and came back about 10 minutes later each time while I was making a call hoping someone would still pick him up.

I called different wildlife centers along the way, multiple times. No one picked up. The last time, I left a voicemail: “I have a brown bear. A real one. It’s in my backseat.” No one called back.

We reached my favorite hotel in Princeton, WV when it was dark. I had a reservation and was looking forward to swimming in their small pool with a hot spa, heaven after a long tense drive. I parked at the back of the hotel, adjacent to the wooded area.

Looking around to make sure no one could see us and opening the door for Mishka, I said, "I won't blame you if you don't come back. Maybe you could make a new home in these mountains. It's beautiful here. I'd definitely stay if I were you." He gave me a look and went. I left the door ajar, just in case.

The next morning, I found Mishka in the back seat of my car, snoozing like he'd never left. I chuckled and started on the second leg of my long drive, less afraid this time.

When we reached the edge of my new town, the sun was setting. Its rays were breaking through the woods on the huge lot of my new home. Did I buy a home with a lot of land just for this, subconsciously? The air smelled different here — humid and hot, heavy with magnolias' bloom.

Can Mishka even survive in the south? I mean, there are still lots of pines and dogwoods, but is it going to be too hot for him?

I opened the car door. Mishka hesitated, then stepped out, sniffing the ground. He walked a slow circle, brushed past my hip, and vanished into the tall wild grass on the edge of the wooded area of my new property.

I didn’t see him again that evening.

But the next morning, he was there — curled at the edge of the clearing, eyes half-lidded, as if he’d always lived here.

I started leaving treats for him in that area. And I stopped calling the rescue centers.

Some mornings he came close, almost close enough to touch. Other days he'd disappear for hours, even days, before returning with burrs in his fur or mud on his paws. I never tried to leash him, never built a fence. He was never mine. Mishka was still wild, after all. It was a miracle he stayed.

Slowly, I stopped looking over my shoulder. The fear dulled, replaced by something else — not quite trust, but understanding. One day, I came home to find a long streak of mud on my living room carpet. Mishka made himself comfortable at the end of it, near my new sofa.

"I see someone is marking his territory," I said, half-terrified and half-amused that he came inside. Mishka got up, brushing against my hip but still not letting me pet him, shaking my hand off his head, and went back into the woods.

He was wild, of course. But not dangerous. Mishka was something I couldn’t leave behind. I just needed to learn how to live with him peacefully.

Author's note: This is a write-up of a dream I had last night. Here's the ChatGPT interpretation of it,

You’re in the midst of a personal transformation. Something wild and powerful has emerged — an instinct, desire, or part of yourself you didn’t expect to handle. Though you’ve tried to delegate or escape it, the real work is learning to coexist with it. By the end of your journey, it becomes part of your new life — not as a threat, but as a companion.

Dreams are amazing, aren't they? Thanks for dreaming with me!