Dealing with Loss by Killing the BearOften, the things we experience as children have lasting effects on us that arise when we least expect them . In the story "Killing the Bear" by Judith Minty, a woman finds herself in exactly such a situation. She finally faces something that happened to her when she was a young child that she probably never realized was bothering her. In this story, the central character is painfully confronted with a major loss of security from his childhood. Throughout “Killing the Bear,” the author cuts back and forth between the current story and seemingly loosely related anecdotes about the main character and bears. One of the first parallel stories concerns the woman's childhood. It talks about something that happens to most children, the loss of a security object. The young girl is tied to a teddy bear and her mother takes her away “for three months” (12). She is told that when the time is up, if she has stopped sucking her thumb, she can get the toy back. However, over time, the child discovers...