Meet Marcella Johnson, a San Diego mother who turns the sorrow of losing her baby into the joy of giving comfort.
‘I had thought that heartbreak was a metaphor, but it actually exists’
In 1999, Marcella Johnson, a mother of three, lost her fourth baby the day he was born.
“I was not only emotionally devastated, but had this pain in my chest as if I had an open wound in my heart from front to back. I had thought that heartbreak was a metaphor, but it actually exists. On top of that, to my surprise, my arms ached as if I had done some heavy lifting. I could not figure out why.”
Johnson later found out that she had “broken heart syndrome,” or Takotsubo syndrome, brought on by the death of a loved one. This painful experience would later transpire into the invention of The Comfort Cub, a weighted therapeutic bear.
‘The instant I held it in my arms, the pain went away’
“One day, my father and I visited my son’s grave,” said Johnson. “He made me take home a flower pot. The pot weighed about 5 to 6 lbs. The instant I held the pot in my arms and against my chest, the pain in my arms and chest disappeared! So I brought the pot back home.”
“I found myself not wanting to put it down. ‘Have I just lost my mind?’ I thought.”
“In my living room, there was this pile of stuffed animals, which I intended to donate to the Children’s hospital. Looking at those stuffed animals while holding the flower pot in my arms, I had an idea of a weighted bear,” she said.
With help from a store manager of the predecessor of a Build-a-Bear store, Johnson made a few weighted bears stuffed with split peas. She then went to a gathering of social workers for local hospitals.
Very cautiously, Johnson introduced the little, heavy and furry bear to them, and quickly, it received overwhelming responses. The demand for the bears grew.
‘With love, from a fellow mom’
