The Buksies

Buksie brought to life

“Here, this one is for you,” said Tracey with an eye tingle and wide smile.

I looked at the tiny blue fluffy bear tugged quietly next to its pink replica in the package, and then back to Tracy as she kept talking.

“I wanted to get something special for Samantha here in Graaff Reinet. It’s such a lovely place with the fun we had here, but she only needs the pink teddy, and I want you to have the blue one.”

“Thanks a lot,” I replied somewhat taken aback by the unexpected gift. “For my 38th birthday in a week?”

“I didn’t know it was your birthday, but yeah, see it that way,” she said and stepped out my car with a, “See you in Aberdeen,” and walked back to the Minivan she drove for the duration of this trip, slowly tailing the twenty tonne truck and the big bus with twenty five hungry and tired men.

Tracey was the public relations lead for this five-week charity trip where twenty strong bodybuilders were pulling a truck for 1500 kilometers from Pretoria to Cape Town in South Africa, trying to raise funds for several institutions.

I sighed as I put the blue bear next to me on the dashboard console, and turned into the road to prepare the next town Aberdeen which was about fifty kilometers away. 

I joined the convoy as an independent journalist and planned to publish a custom magazine on the entire event, so my focus was to cover the event in articles and photos, but soon realised the organisers needed more help on the road with logistics. 

So my self-proclaimed job now, was to go ahead and prepare each next town on the route for this charity campaign, create some hype, organise suitable accommodation for the entire convoy, and five meals a day for the bodybuilders who needed to sustain those bulky muscles. 

It turned out to be a taxing task, keeping them fed and content. They were enormous guys, but acted like babies at times.

I chuckled when thinking about how they complained in the evenings, demanding this, then that, then the mattresses were too thin, then the food was too little, then their legs hurt and needed a masseuse, and every day posed something new.

Tracey and I were the only two girls among the men and bonded closely against the forces of masculinity. So we spent all evenings together, Tracey talking about her daughter Samantha and her son, and me about my two teenage sons whom I left on their own back home.

And off course having lots of fun and laughter, sometimes with the guys, but mostly on our own.

We grew quite fond of each other, so the sudden teddy gift quite explainable.

The fundraising efforts were taking its toll every day, with Tracey on live calls with radio and TV stations, and releases going out to editors of nationwide magazines and newspapers, but the audience responses weren’t that good at all. 

The guys strapped in with harnesses five at a time pulling the large truck geared into neutral with no mechanical support, surely attracted a lot of interests and attention as we moved through each town, but people did not like to part with their money, and I spent most of my time on the road alone in the car, thinking of ways to make people care more about thousands of orphans, the HIV infected, and children cancer victims. 

The next town was Aberdeen not so far from Graaff Reinet, then the next after that, Willowmore. 

Because I was all alone during the day in the car, speeding to the next town and then back again to the convoy with food parcels, recording my voice notes and taking photos, then ahead again to prepare the accommodation arrangements for the night, I kept myself busy with my thoughts and listening to music. 

Between Aberdeen and Willowmore which was quite a long stretch, my eyes kept on catching those tiny black eyes of the blue teddy bear next to me in the console. 

“So what are we going to call you?” I eventually asked after long silent moments in the car.

“Buksie,” he immediately replied.

I was stunned at his rapid response, and started giggling. 

“Buksie? That’s a boy’s name.”

“Daha, I’m blue aren’t I?” came the quick reply.

I just stared at the tiny blue teddy with an open mouth, surprised at how quickly his responses rolled from my own lips.

I turned my attention back to the road, but it laid ahead open, hot, quiet and long.

“Well, Buksie,” I said, “At least now I have you to talk to.”

But this time he remained quiet, as to mull over that comment as a testament to the state of my sanity.

A week before my birthday, and three months before the biggest tragedy of my life, it seemed that Buksie appeared just at the right time in my life, that sunny day in early December when Tracey handed me the bear, and I looked into his black round onyx eyes, seeing my own tiny reflection in it shining. 

As the years went by, my reflection would shine brightly and other times, slightly dimmed, but I was always there, in his eyes, as if he lived only for me.

I did not realise then that day on the road to Willowmore, just how big a part Buksie would play in the rest of my life. He became my most closest confidante, a companion, a bear  to cry on and someone to speak to, and someone who spoke to me. 

Buksie would become a persona totally on his own. Even though he’s just fluff and fabric… to me, he had a soul. And he had a strong will of his own.

Just how deep this connection between us would run, became an unexplainable enigma, and for some, a slight concern about the state of my mind.

But I didn’t care. He was mine. He was my Buksie, a tiny blue bear standing only 20cm tall.

Some nights he slept in my hand, his body held in a tight grip, and other nights he slept in the cradle of my arms, other nights he slept on his own pillow beside me, and other nights he lept out and slept on the floor next to my bed, but he was, and still is, always there.

He’s my muse when I write, my worst critic when I make mistakes and ask for opinions. He’s my biggest support and source of inspiration, and he’s the one with all the answers.

Buksie and Sons…

When I arrived back home from my trip a week before Xmas, Buksie took a slight backseat. No definitive reason, it was just that my sons, Lorenzo and JP kept me occupied, with me being away for so long, we had a lot to catch up on.

So when Buksie started to interrupt here and there during my tellings of the events, Lorenzo and JP frowned a little, tolerating the interplay with slight irritation, I left him on the bed and only spoke to him when we were alone.

When Tracey came to visit on Xmas day she brought, as a gift, another brown floppy stuffed dog.

I was immediately flared up, as I could not understand why she would give me another toy.  Buksie already occupied so much space in my mind that there was no room for another. But of course Tracey would not understand this.

But after three weeks I got used to the pair on my bed, sitting there together watching my every move, Buksie the little blue and the caramel floppy dog. To fix my name-giving conundrum as he did not speak to me the same way Buksie did, I gave the dog the name of Buks. 

So now I had Buksie and Buks. But when I interacted with them together it was collectively as the Buksies and when alone I called the little blue Buksie.

I know it’s not fair to say, but Buks would never mean to me what Buksie did. And I’m not entirely sure why. I viewed Buks always as just a tag along, someone I have to bear, and not really MY bear.

But each time I tried to push him over to someone else I felt tremendous guilt and just couldn’t not do it. Until I stopped worrying about it, so Buks would always be there, but as the inside-outsider. Outsider to my and Buksies’ relationship that is.

The Buksies didn’t talk much with my sons, partly because they were out most of the time and partly because they thought me just being silly and the fad would pass. I didn’t.

January and February passed with me and a new team planning a new venture into Africa, Guts to Glory which would become a TV series about teams competing in extreme adventure activities, so I was happy and Buksie made his input frequent, and to my delight, quite innovatively.

I came to realise Buksie could access a part of my brain which I couldn’t. He came up with the most outrageous ideas, which in the end, worked very well.

And then in early March my son JP died. But this writing is not about his death. It’s about Buksie.

It was Buksie that carried me through the tragedy, the tears, the grief, the anger, the acceptance, the empty space left in my heart.

About two years after JP’s death Lorenzo went to China to teach English to students and he brought back a stuffed Panda Bear to add to my Buksie collection. Lorenzo named him Mao, Madarin for Panda Bear.

The Buksies and I accepted Mao with an open heart as a reminder of Teddy’s bear which he refused to shoot, and how his actions became an entendre on drawing the line on conservation, more specifically Panda bears, going extinct. 

So now I had a hug (a group of teddy bears is called a hug :-))

Over the past years Buksie and I naturally – due to a commensalistic symbiosis – grew fonder and fonder of each other. We were a close weaved unit, and unravelling that fabric would be beyond comprehending

Tracey bought the blue teddie for me not because any reason in particular – she bought it for her daughter while we were on tour and gave me the extra one, her motives not very clear to this day but…

The blue bear would influence  the course of my life  tremendously, frequently influencing my decisions and thinking…

And no, I’m not a child but a 60 year old lady…. I got Buksie when I was 38 in 2003

Now, I’m writing a book on the Buksies and our adventures.