A little girl who lost a special teddy bear she'd had since being adopted from an Ethiopian orphanage thought it was gone forever when she forgot it along a trail in Glacier National Park last year. Her parents and family friends still held onto a glimmer of hope—and hope won out. Thanks to a social media plea, the sharp eyes and soft heart of a park ranger, and the closure of a hiking trail because of grizzly bear activity on the same day a family friend visited the park, the teddy bear is back in the arms of 6-year-old Naomi Pascal in Jackson, Wyo., reports the AP.
Teddy was the first gift Ben and Addie Pascal sent to Naomi before she was adopted in 2016. She took Teddy with her on family trips to Ethiopia, Rwanda, Croatia, and Greece. When Ben Pascal took his kids to Montana in October 2020, Teddy was once again along for the adventure. While Pascal and a friend of his went on a hike in Glacier National Park, family friend Terri Hayden watched the kids. They were almost back to Hayden's home in Bigfork that night when they realized they didn't have Teddy. It snowed overnight, closing the higher elevations of the park for the season and preventing Hayden from returning to search for Teddy.
Hayden made a report to park officials, hoping someone might turn in the bear to a lost-and-found. Ranger Tom Mazzarisi, a bear specialist in Glacier, actually had found the wet stuffed bear, but, unaware it had been reported lost, he took it home for the winter; come April, when he went back to work, he "immediately put him on the dash of my patrol truck." In June, Addie Pascal posted a plea on Facebook for help finding Teddy, to no avail. Hayden, meanwhile, felt bad about the loss of Naomi’s special bear, so when she and some family members visited Glacier in late September, she told them about it and stopped to check on potential lost-and-found sites.
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"I'm a woman of faith," Hayden said. "And that morning I said, 'OK, Lord, if this bear is around, please put that bear in my path.'" That's exactly what happened when Hayden and her adult niece spotted the bear in Mazzarisi's truck after being turned back from a trail that was closed due to bear activity. She took a picture and sent it to Addie Pascal, who quickly confirmed it was Teddy. Hayden shipped the bear to Naomi. The bear's return, which has earned 12,000 likes on the Glacier National Park Facebook page, is a beautiful story that resonates, said Ben Pascal: It was "a story of hope and kindness and people just working together."
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