The Comfort Cub has opened a new chapter – in the form of a book! Recently, for Mi Escuelita School in Chula Vista, the school celebrated new beginnings at the graduation ceremony during Sheltering-in-Place with our very own Super Comfort Cub hero!
The wonderful costume was sewn by our newest Ambassador, Amy! Super Comfort Cub was a hit as were all of the heroes, the graduates themselves.
Check out the link to a news segment Channel 8 News (San Diego) featuring our “My Feelings” coloring book! Contact us to learn more about this at info@thecomfortcub.org.
The Comfort Cub has been in the press recently as we are Gifting Comfort Cubs to people who are going through severe stress due to COVID-19 and its ripple effects. Originally our intention was to give away 1000 Comfort Cubs to underscore our 20th anniversary milestone. Today we have earmarked many of those cubs to provide to medical workers, front line responders and affected individuals of COVID-19.
Please link here if you are in need of a cub so we may learn your story.
From Jane O.
I have a niece who is 27, single, working on the front lines of COVID-19. She is a registered nurse in the ICU at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She has experienced an enormous amount of trauma while seeing the devastation of this pandemic. She takes care of multiple patients during her long nightly shifts who are in tragic despair. Several have passed away and every one of them are alone. My niece’s heart is extremely heavy. She lives alone and is frightened. We are concerned about both her safety and well-being due to this horrible experience, it may very well have long lasting effects on her mental health. This comfort cub will be a saving grace to her in more ways than one.
Guest Post by Western Reserve Grief Services of Ohio
On February 5th, 2020, Western Reserve Grief Services’ staff and volunteers held a Forget-Me-Not Retreat at Kingsville Elementary School for students who have experienced the death of a loved one. One of the highlights of this day was the presentation of the Comfort Cubs.
The Comfort Cubs, which were generously donated by The Chad Corbin Starfish Foundation, are weighted teddy bears that provide therapeutic and emotional relief using deep-touch pressure to those who have suffered a traumatic loss. For these young students, the cubs helped them to cope with the death of their special person and remember all the hard grief work that they performed during the day. One student even named her cub after a volunteer!
A very special thanks to the Chad Corbin Starfish Foundation and the Comfort Cub Organization for their support. To learn more about the Comfort Cub Organization, please visit www.thecomfortcub.org.”
Our guest writer today recently won a Comfort Cub raffle by tuning in to a podcast by Laura Diehl. In what we call a Godwink moment, Patti’s daughter and our founder Marcella’s son share the exact same birthdate, April 11th. Please take a read at Patti’s important message that could have prevented a senseless tragedy. Thank you, Patti, for sharing.
My daughter Megan Marie Small was killed in a head on collision car accident, November 25, 2007. She was a promising pre-pharmacy student majoring in Bio-Chemistry and was returning that Sunday afternoon to Baylor University after Thanksgiving Break. Ten miles north of Calvert on Highway 6, a college student traveling southbound crossed the centerline and hit Megan head-on killing her instantly. Megan’s best friend, Laura Gleffe was following behind, swerved to avoid the accident,
rolled her vehicle several times before it came to a stop. The young man was conscious after impact and brought by ambulance to a Bryan Texas hospital in critical condition but survived. Laura also was taken by ambulance but later release that evening.
You never imagine that you would ever get that dreadful phone call. That only happens to other people right? Well, our lives changed forever that November evening….our family destroyed in an instant. We drove to the accident scene that night. The police officers would not let us near her vehicle.
Megan’s body was already transferred to the nearest funeral home. The officers assured my husband that they would do a thorough investigation. We had no other choice but to drive the 2 hour drive home and deal with this horrific nightmare.
The District Attorney contacted us afterwards and said that he was going to bring this case before the Grand Jury in Roberson County. In March 2008, the Grand Jury “no billed” the young man because of insufficient evidence and no witnesses. No alcohol or drug screen was collected and the young man denied having a cell phone. He said he could not remember anything 45 minutes before the accident.
Losing a child is probably one of the most devastating things that can happen to a parent. The accident was so unusual. It was in a very rural area of Highway 6…it never made any sense to Kevin and I to how and why it happened. Megan was such a responsible driver…she knew every inch of that route to school. The DA recommended to Kevin and I to go forward with a civil suit. We decided to join forces with the Gleffe family who had already filed. We found out that the young man’s insurance company refused to pay any of Laura’s car and hospital expenses. We never intended to go for monetary reasons….we just wanted to know what happened.
It wasn’t until August of 2009 that we found the “smoking gun” that killed Megan. Cell phone records from the young man were subpoenaed after a recent deposition revealing that he indeed owned a cell phone. It showed in those 45 minutes before the accident he placed 7 phone calls and sent/received 15 text messages. The last text message (which he was receiving), place him crossing the median at the time of the incident. What really shocked my husband and I was the lawyers told us (since the accident), he had received 3 moving violations (two speeding, and one failure to stop in a school zone). He had learned absolutely nothing from killing our daughter. We had no choice but to go forward with the civil suit.
In March of 2010, the jury found the young man responsible for the wrongful death (22 M) of Megan Marie Small after only 2 and one half hours of deliberation. Even though it was a 22 M verdict, no money was ever collected. He claimed bankruptcy months before the trial. The landmark verdict however established a precedent for distracted driving accident victims across Texas and throughout the country and continues to make reckless drivers responsible. Megan’s case originally never went into the books as a “distracted driving” incident. Most people are unwilling to reveal that they were on the phone at the time of an accident. Distracted Driving accidents statistics are probably much higher than we think.
Don’t let this be last picture of your loved one. After several years of advocating for texting legislation, Texas finally passed HB62 in 2017. This made texting while driving illegal across the state of Texas. The law prohibits motorists from reading, writing, or sending electronic messages while driving. A person can be punished with a fine of 25-99 dollars for a first offense and 100-200 dollars for a second. This legislation with all its loopholes is very difficult to enforce but it is a start. We need to pass stronger laws in Texas to give law enforcement the tools to do their job to keep our roads safe. In 2018, Georgia passed its first “Hands-Free” Law and already traffic fatalities are down about 10 percent. Let this be a great example that laws DO work. Distraction + Driving = Deadly Choice. Please Don’t Mess With Our Texans (our children, our mothers, our fathers, our siblings, our friends)!!! TALK….TEXT……CRASH……HANG UP AND JUST DRIVE!!! Take it from a mother who lost everything……….
The following note is from our newest Ambassador, Anna Viettry. We welcome her with open arms and love what she represents. Check out her wonderful note – and her tremendous donation to The Comfort Cub:
“I work for Modern Woodmen of America, a fraternal financial services organization. What does that mean? Thanks for asking, it means we have a business model wrapped around benefitting our members and community through financial planning, service, and putting a percentage of what we make into the community in order for it to flourish.
I was awarded by my company the Impact Maker Award for impacting my community for the year. The award came with a check that I could grant to my choice of charity – and here we are, The Comfort Cub.
I came across the Comfort Cub through Susan H., who was in my networking group and I was touched by the mission she shared with me.
My personal mission is to relieve the financial and emotional chip on people’s shoulders. Due to my line of work, I work with planning families’ financial futures and making adjustments when “life happens”- and loss, unfortunately, is an event we experience in our lives whether it’s a person we love, a pet we adored, and/or a dream we have put to the side. It goes even greater to comfort those who feel lost, anxious, or belonging. So it is such an amazing resource that I can support the people I know both professionally and personally more by giving them a comfort cub in a time of grief.
There is a level of planning and objective thinking we need to do, and I know that there is also a physical and physiological process to grief and our emotional anxieties that give us comfort. I joyfully present and support the Comfort Cub through this check, spreading awareness, and other ways I can help because of the impact they make both outside of my sphere of influence and those who are near and dear to my heart”
We are proud to introduce Nancy L. to all of you. Nancy has a history with our founder, Marcella, having known each other since their university days at UC Santa Barbara. As their lives intersected after graduation and as they became wives and mothers, they stayed in touch without skipping a beat, and eventually Nancy joined The Comfort Cub team as one of our first Ambassadors.
We are excited to list the amazing accomplishments Nancy has achieved in the past 12+ months.
A major accomplishment was getting our Comfort Cub program approved in the very first Ronald McDonald House in the country, located in Philadelphia, PA. This particular accomplishment meant a lot to Nancy as that is where her beloved Aunt Patty was from. We are in the process of shipping our single largest order ever to Ronald McDonald House, we are so grateful to Nancy!
Nancy established an amazing connection with the Bailard Foundation. Through them we are able to fund a cub program at Sutter Health-Mills Peninsula Hospital.
Secured a program at UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital Oakland. We are now able to provide cubs to parents, siblings, grandparents who are bereaving the loss of child.
Re-installed our Cub program within the Kaiser Permanente organization. Within some of the larger organizations we have to work through the bureaucracy to have our cubs on the approved list. Nancy was instrumental in making that happen.
Nancy was invited as an Ambassador of The Comfort Cub to join St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church of Danville, California. Their Outreach Committee serves local non-profits in the San Francisco Bay Area. Our first grant resulted in enough funding to secure dozens of Comfort Cubs for their community outreach program throughout the Bay Area.
Nancy is newly working with Dr Wendy Zachary, M.D., Director of Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP). Wendy leads Alzheimers research and is interested in pursuing a pilot program using The Comfort Cubs as a therapy tool for Alzheimers patients. She leads their acclaimed ACE (Acute Care for Elderly) program.
We are SO thankful for Nancy and her amazing ability to partner with so many organizations and all of her tremendous achievements. Nancy has opened so many doors for the Comfort Cub. We can’t wait to see what she does next!
Three years since I said “hello” and “goodbye” to my child on the same day.
Three years since I’ve seen his face.
Three years since I’ve held his hand.
Three years since my heart shattered into a million pieces.
Three years since a giant chasm cut my life into two parts; “before” and “after.”
Immediately after Asher’s death and subsequent birth, I was a shell of a person. I would sit on the sofa all day waiting for it to be an appropriate time to pack it in and go to bed. I would wake the next day and repeat the process. I felt guilty every time I smiled or laughed at something. My child just died, how could anything make me happy?! I refused to allow myself go back to the things I did before loss. Returning home and binging Revenge on Netflix, like I was doing before he died, felt wrong. In my mind, it would’ve felt like none of it happened, like Asher was never really here in the first place. I needed life to be different as proof of his short existence.
Click here to continue (this will take you to Share Magazine where this article first appeared.
This is my daughter, Sandy Casey. She was one of the 58 taken from us in the Las Vegas shooting on October 1, 2017 (at the Route 91 Harvest Festival Concert). This Comfort Cub was given to me by Beverly, she herself was a victim of the Vegas shooting. She had this cub personalized in honor of my daughter Sandy!
Sandy was a special Ed teacher and a very special one. She would call her students “her kids” and she would go to great lengths to stand by her students. This cub is a very special teddy bear. It has to live up to the person that Sandy was. Thank you so much to Beverly for always going above and beyond for the memory of our sweet girl Sandy.
NOTE: Beverly is one of our “super ambassadors” of the Comfort Cub, raising money and awareness about the cub. She sends ripples of kindness and has distributed cubs to many people who are in need of a hug. We are in awe of Beverly’s kindness!
Words cannot express what this means to me (to receive a Comfort Cub). My son passed away on January 6, 2017. He stepped in front of a truck. He served in the army as a sergeant for two tours. When he came back he had PTSD. It broke my heart. He had just turned 32 on January 29th. He was my baby and only son out of three children.
He is truly missed by me everyday. Thank you to everyone who has suffered the tragic loss of a loved one. And to the young lady that these bears were made in her honor. Bless You.
NOTE: We have encountered amazing people who have cubs on hand to give to others in need. They have raised funds on their own to purchase these cubs. Beverly gave a Comfort Cub to this woman and she wrote to tell Beverly how much it means to her to have this cub. We are so grateful to you Beverly, and so thankful you gave her a cub.
A thousand hugs to Marissa for sharing her story of grief, compassion, and finding the way back to hope and healing. Our team learned of Marissa after she held a Facebook birthday fundraiser which raised enough funds to bring more Comfort Cubs to other parents in their time of grief. Below is her story.
My husband Ken and I were married August of 2014. We had been high-school sweethearts and been long distance for just over two years while I finished school and Ken joined the Marine Corp. Just two months after moving out to Camp Pendleton California, we had an unexpected pregnancy. I was only eighteen, I hadn’t started college, and we were nowhere near financially stable. However, we couldn’t help but be absolutely thrilled to welcome a sweet baby into our new little family. When we were 17 weeks along we found out it was a boy and named him Edward Erwin, after both of Ken’s grandfathers.
When we were 17 weeks along we found out it was a boy and named him Edward Erwin, after both of Ken’s grandfathers.
In the beginning of our pregnancy we had opted for genetic testing, never imagining we would be given the news our baby had a chromosomal anomaly. At 18 weeks, we were told our baby had a 1 in 6 chance of having Downs Syndrome. With an additional non-invasive blood test our fear was confirmed. To add to this, at our 20 week ultrasound we were informed Edward had a heart defect. He had a hole in the middle of all four chambers of his heart and would need surgery within a few months of birth. Lastly, he had been diagnosed with Duodenal Atresia, which is a separation of the stomach. He would need surgery within 24 hours of birth to be able to eat and I was likely not going to be able to hold him right away. Our pregnancy from then on was filled with extra appointments to monitor our little Edward’s heart and began preparation for many months stay in the hospital since he would be having surgeries immediately. With all of our fear and stress, we still found happiness in our pregnancy. We still dreamt of our happy future and had faith that our baby would be strong through it all. However, at 38 weeks, we went in for a routine check-up and were told the heartbreaking news that our son’s heart was no longer beating.
To add to this, at our 20 week ultrasound we were informed Edward had a heart defect.
If I allow myself, I can still imagine the exact layout of the small ultrasound room. For some reason, as soon as we got there, I had a sinking feeling like something was wrong. The ultrasound tech was having trouble and I fearfully asked what was wrong. She shook her head and said the machine wasn’t working and she needed someone to help her. As she left I started shaking. Ken smiled and told me to calm down and that everything was okay but I couldn’t. The two women came in and checked. Then a third. The third woman was a dark haired doctor. After a quick check she turned and looked me in the eye. “Ma’am I am so sorry but we cannot find his heartbeat. When was the last time you felt him move?” I started hyperventilating and looked desperately at Ken.
Shaking my head rapidly saying, “NO, no, no,” hoping the nightmare would end and I’d wake up in my bed. But this wasn’t a dream. My husband reached out in tears and put both hands on my face and shushed me as I cried out. I had never seen him cry. They had to be wrong. I couldn’t breathe. “Ma’am do you remember when you felt him move last?” The doctor asked again. I couldn’t remember. He moved so much all the time I never had to worry about kick counts and the last two days contractions had started but were so irregular and not painful yet I hadn’t thought anything was wrong. After explaining this, the doctor said that was completely normal and assured me that it wasn’t my fault, these things just happen. Then she asked what I wanted to do. All I could reply was, “I need to call my mom.”
I was induced June 16th and had him stillbirth June 17th, 2015. Edward was born but the room was silent. I had never cried harder than I did in that moment. That silence, where there should be a baby crying, was devastating. I held him for about an hour. His skin was peeling but I couldn’t look away. My sweet boy would never grow up, never take his first steps, never learn to ride a bike. I felt as though I failed him. What kind of mother doesn’t know what’s wrong with her baby she’s carrying? You read those stories about “mother’s intuition,” but mine failed me. And now I sat holding a still baby in a silent room.
The details of the rest of our stay in the hospital was a bit of a blur. Before we were discharged were given a purple satin box with our son’s handprints, footprints, lock of hair, and a few more little things. We were also given a weighted teddy bear called a Comfort Cub. We were told how a woman went through something similar and created these cubs to donate to hospitals for women who had to go home with empty arms. I clung to it. It sat on the couch next to me for weeks and I carried it around if I didn’t know what else to do. It also gave us inspiration to find a teddy bear urn. We wanted to have our baby with us wherever the military took us so cremation was the only option for us.
We wanted to have our baby with us wherever the military took us so cremation was the only option for us.
We were ready to be parents but instead came home with empty arms and broken hearts. We decided to get pregnant again right away. In September, we were pregnant again, this time with a little girl. A baby born after a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss is referred as a Rainbow Baby. A rainbow is not a replacement but a glimmer of hope and happiness after the storm. Myra was my rainbow, my bright light in a very dark time in my life. She helped me heal in a way I don’t think I could have without her. Myra brought meaning back into my life and gave me my reason to keep living.
Myra was my rainbow, my bright light in a very dark time in my life.
My children are the reason I became a photographer. I named my business Angels and Rainbows Photography, for my angel in heaven and my rainbow here with me. Every year on Edward’s birthday, I buy a birthday cake and I do a special photoshoot with Myra to honor him.
I decided a long time ago I would not live my life pretending he never existed. He was a huge part of my life and I will always talk about him and share my story with others. Sadly, 1 in 4 women lose a pregnancy because of miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss and I feel like my calling in life is to help them and be there. My goal for my business is to offer rainbow baby sessions every year and donate the proceeds to help other women and families who have lost children.
That’s one reason the Comfort Cub is amazing. It gave me something to cling to when I had no one to turn to.
Sometimes words aren’t wanted or needed. Sometimes it’s about just being there and offering a shoulder to cry on. I got a lot of, yet heartfelt, useless advise after losing our son. Most of it angered me. I didn’t want to hear it was God’s plan or that it was better for my baby to be in heaven. I didn’t want to hear time would make it better or easier. I know everyone meant well but at the time when you’re grieving it doesn’t help and just causes anger and resentment. That’s one reason these comfort cubs are amazing. It gave me something to cling to when I had no one to turn to.
