Honouring my Celebrity Crush

Living in Winnipeg, you are bound to come across your share of celebrities.   I have run into Steve Gould at a gas station.   I used to share the same dry cleaner as Jeff Stoughton.  He may still go there, I just don't dry clean very much anymore.   When I voted in the last federal election, Jonathon Mead was in line behind me.  Of course, I realize there are more celebrities in other walks of life than just curling.  When the Jets traded Evander Kane, it was a sad day for those of us who regularly play poker.  Also, and this is a little sensitive, so I'm not going to reveal the person, but I have been in line at a liquor store behind a popular tv news reporter.

But, there is one Winnipeg celebrity that I have had a huge crush on for over 20 years.  I have run into this celebrity a number of times.  I have gone to several ticketed events where he is appearing.  I've also had the good fortune to run into him randomly at malls and other public places.   My crush is so deep that even when I know I will be seeing him, I lose my cool, become overwhelmed with emotion, and burst into tears.  I would give anything to tell him how I feel about him, but every time I see him, I am reduced to a blubbering idiot.   He is extremely kind and gracious.  Each time he meets me, he just gives me a hug and pretends this is the first time we have met, thus, not embarrassing me any more than I already am.  He truly is a class act.

The object of my intense affection is Dr. Good Bear.  Don't think I am totally crazy.  I am aware that he is not a real bear.  I know that he is just some guy dressed up like a bear dressed up like a Doctor The reason that I have such a crush on Dr. Good Bear is everything that he represents.  

Almost 24 years ago, my son was born at HSC at 3 lbs and 8 weeks premature.  I was living in North Western Ontario at the time, and I developed pre-eclampsia which quickly became eclampsia and I had to be transported by air ambulance to Winnipeg.  It was a rough 36 hours but at the end, I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.  Due to his prematurity, he was placed in NICU.  His first day on Earth was pretty rough; his lungs collapsed and he experienced some other complications, but he was a fighter.  

Every time I entered NICU, I was greeted with a life-size picture of Dr. Good Bear and that is when I developed the crush.  

At 32 weeks, Gerry didn't have a developed gag reflex so he needed to be tube fed every three hours. I wanted to do as many feedings as possible so I learned how to do this.  He was so weak that it took him three days to open one eye and the second eye didn't open until he was seven days old.  But, he thrived.  It quickly became apparent that what he needed most wasn't medical intervention.  He needed me.  I took him out of his incubator all the time and just held him in our little corner and rocked him and talked to him.  When he had to be in the incubator, I reached in and held a finger or a toe and would read the paper to him, just so he could hear my voice.  

NICU was such a unique environment.  At 3 lbs, Gerry was "mid-sized" and he looked like a giant compared to some babies who were less than a pound.  I remember one set of twins that were less than a pound and a few days old and addicted to cocaine.  These two poor little angels spent their only three days on Earth convulsing.  It was really hard to watch and they didn't have any visitors.  Alone except for the nurses.  The saddest case was a baby across from Gerry that was over 4 lbs when he was born and other than being a little bit premature, was very healthy.  Apparently, this baby was going to be adopted privately.  When the baby was premature, the adoptive parents changed their mind.  They came a couple of times and cried a lot but didn't touch the baby.  After the second time, they didn't come again.  The baby was there before Gerry but Gerry was out of the incubator and in a bassinet a week before this baby.  Gerry will be celebrating his 24th birthday this year and is a wonderful young man.

Being in NICU for several days became very depressing.   It was bad enough seeing so many babies in crisis, but more alarming what most of the babies there didn't have to be there.  Most of the babies were there because of acts of omission or commission on the part of their birth mothers.  The most common at that time was babies suffering from Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.   Or babies born with breathing problems due to the mother smoking during pregnancy.

I was fortunate enough that my mom lived in Winnipeg so I was able to be there everyday.  My husband was working back home, so he could only come once a week.  All the Nurses made such a fuss about him.  They kept telling me how handsome he was and kept asking when he would be coming.   I really didn't know what the fuss was about until one day I took a hard look around and realized there really no dads involved.

One day a young mom came to visit her new baby and she was really crying so I went over and hugged her.  It turned out that she was saying hello and good-bye to her baby as the Children's Aid Society was taking her baby into care once it was medically cleared.  I hugged this young woman closer.  Then, this mom told me that she was 20 years old and this was her fifth child and the first four were already permanent Wards of the Province.  Unfortunately, I became judgmental and relaxed my grip around this young lady, eventually sneaking away while wondering how many more times she would be in this situation.

I don't know about now, but 20 years ago, the statistics for babies who required time in NICU were horrific.  They said about 50% of these babies ended up in foster care before the age of 2.  This was because of the lack of fully formed attachments of these babies.  Most of the babies had health problems throughout their lives and very few finished high school and a large percentage ended up incarcerated.  Social problems seemed to follow them throughout their lives.  You knew that so many of those babies just didn't have a chance.

So, instead of releasing my grip on that young mom, I should have actually held her closer.  She probably didn't have a positive female influence in her life.  Maybe that could have made a difference in her life.

Dr. Good Bear is an incredible celebrity because he can encourage use to care about these babies. However, what I observed is that these babies need help beyond NICU.  These babies eventually become toddlers and then school age and then teenagers and finally adults.  They need us every step of their journey in order to help them break the cycles.  We claim to be a society that values life, all life.  It is somewhat easy to care for a helpless premature baby.  It is easy for us to give money for that cause.   It is harder to care for a 10 year old delinquent who is starting to experiment with vandalism.   However, it is entirely possible that the same child never knew what it was like to be valued, thus never knowing how to value.

I don't think it is enough for us to buy a lottery ticket on a dream home once a year.  I think that so much of societal problems can be traced back to our children not feeling loved while growing up.  Babies born into families who weren't emotionally mature enough to care for themselves let alone a dependent baby.  Somehow, we have to figure out how we can all support children of all ages and ensure they are prepared to take on the challenge of adulthood.  Somehow, I think we can do more.

Somehow, this will end up benefiting all of us and will be worth it.