Joke:
So a polar bear walks into a bar and says to the bartender, “I’ll have a gin and ——————tonic please.”

The bartender says, “Of course, but may I ask why the big pause?”

The polar bear says, “I was born with them”.

Yes, it’s the worst joke I’ve ever heard, and my dear husband Elliott told it to me many years before we were even married. In times of great stress we say to each other “polar bear”, and it takes us right back to that terrible joke. Those words have a way of disarming us, being a great leveller to whatever is happening in the moment. So it’s no surprise that we’ve been saying “polar bear” quite a bit lately.

Right before my last surgery, just as I was about to go under, I asked a nurse to call Elliott and tell him those magic words. Apparently he laughed out loud when he was called and told.

When I ended up in the ICU the nurse asked me if I wanted to make a list of things for Elliott to bring me. On my list I put a polar bear, and when I arrived home he was sitting there waiting for me. Now I don’t sleep without him, or the polar bear! haha