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Stranger Finds 2-Year-Old's Missing Bear at Park, Returns It with Photos from Adventure

By Kayla Kunkel October 27, 2018 at 12:30pm

At the end of a fun park day one afternoon, 2-year-old Henry and his mother, Catherine Antczak, frantically realized that they lost someone very special: Henry’s beloved teddy bear, Blueberry.

Anywhere Henry went, Blueberry also tagged along for the adventure, so it wasn’t odd that Blueberry joined the boy and his mom at Elm Grove Village Park in Wisconsin that day.

“He does everything with him,” Antczak told CBS 58.

The fact that the scruffy, well-loved teddy bear was missing was a big deal. Antczak and Henry searched for hours looking for Blueberry, but the search didn’t end as they had hoped. They thought that he was gone forever.

Luckily, that’s not where Blueberry’s story ends!

About three weeks later, Brooke Fadeski was walking her dog Olive around the lake in Elm Grove Village Park when something caught her eye.

“It was in one of the grossest parts of the pond,” Fadeski laughed. “There’s the teddy bear laying upright with just his muzzle sticking out and right below the water you could see its little paws.”

Fadeski had no idea who the bear belonged to, but she thought of her own children and their beloved items and figured someone might be missing the now sopping wet stuffed animal very much.

Have you ever lost something special and then had it returned to you?

She found a nearby sunflower stalk and began to rescue the poor bear from what could have been his watery grave.

“There was no way I was getting in,” she said. “But yeah, I dragged him into safety.”

She took him home, cleaned him up and posted a picture on a local Facebook group in hopes that someone would recognize the bear’s adorable face.

She wrote, “Found this precious teddy bear in EG Park pond looking pretty rough. He’s getting some spa treatments and hoping to find his owner.”

It only took four hours for Antczak’s sister to recognize Blueberry and tag her in the post.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, it’s Blueberry,'” Antczak said. “I think my heart skipped a beat.”

Henry and Blueberry were soon reunited and best pals once again, absence can only make the heart grow fonder, after all.

But Blueberry wasn’t returned empty-handed.

“I think I was just so excited that the owner was found that I was like ok, ‘We need to make this a little bit more fun,’” Fadeski said.

Fadeski gave Henry photos of all of the adventures Blueberry had taken since the day Henry last saw him: dressing up like a pirate, snuggling with Olive and reading books.

She even included note cards detailing some of the days that Blueberry spent alone.

It made the return of Henry’s pal a little more magical and special.

“It will be something that we always remember,” Antczak said. “Just super heartwarming and just really restores your faith in humanity.”

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