As the fire was coming and there was no time to THINK, I grabbed a few little hats sitting on the table that I had knit as holiday gifts…and I stuffed them with a couple of tiny tchotchkes that I glanced at as I flew by.
These little bears…a mother and two babies.
As a girl, when not in India, my family summered in northern Michigan…my parents finally retired there as they loved it so passionately.
There is a native American tale of a mother bear who was driven into Lake Michigan to escape a forest fire. The mother bear reached the shore first and climbed to the top of a high bluff to watch and wait for her cubs. The cubs drowned within sight of the shore. The Great Spirit created two islands to mark the spot where the cubs disappeared and then created a solitary dune to represent the eternal vigil of the mother bear.
As a family we adored the Sleeping Bear dunes…and my mother gave me these bears for my birthday one year.
SO much in this story….tears are flowing….BUT the fact that I scooped them UP and put them in a hat as I ran out the door, a PHENOMENAL gift to self.