To: <ucsbear@ucsb.edu>

From: Lucy Dixon <lucydixon@umail.ucsb.edu>

Subject: I miss you

Dearest Bear,

SARAH CAULDER / DAILY NEXUS

I remember the day you wandered onto our beloved campus like it was three weeks ago. The pictures of you climbing that tree sent my deeply buried maternal instincts to the center of my chest. I wanted to swaddle you in a fluffy blanket of an unusual size. I wanted to nurture you and raise you as my own. 

I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, as demonstrated by the students who ignored campus safety advisories to see you with their own eyes. Students wandered the corridors of South Hall, hoping for a glimpse of your majesty. Hours after your departure, I forced my friend to drive me around the North Hall bus loop, all the while squinting into the recesses of Kerr Hall. 

You wouldn’t know it (because you are a bear), but the campus rejoiced with your arrival. Whispered tales of alleged sightings filled our hallowed halls, and I couldn’t scroll Instagram without some campus organization or other photoshopping you onto their feed. I think it has something to do with the imagery of a lonely bear, far from home and with nowhere to turn, wandering onto a campus of thousands. It struck a chord with us humans because we’re just looking for companionship too. And in this incredibly divisive time, it felt like the campus was well and truly united behind something: you.

You left as quickly as you arrived, sweeping into our lives and hearts with the poeticism of a tragic hero. There’s no way to confirm that you were the bear they found on the side of the highway — and there is perhaps some solace in that fact — but we mourn all the same. 

Maybe you did make it across that highway, maybe you made it home. Maybe we mourn for nothing. Either way, I miss you, I’m sorry.

Bearly holding on, 

Lucy