Dealing with Loss in Bear Killing Often the things we experience as children have lasting effects on us that show up when we least expect them. In Judith Minty's story "Killing the Bear", a woman finds herself in just such a situation. She finally faces something that happened to her as a child that she probably never even realized was bothering her. In this story the central character painfully faces the severe loss of security in his childhood. In "Killing the Bear" the author flips back and forth on the story in question and seemingly only vaguely anecdotes about the main character and bears. One of the first of these side stories concerns the woman's childhood. We're talking about something that happens to most children, the loss of a safety object. The little girl is attached to a stuffed bear and her mother takes it away from her "for three months" (12). She is told that when the time is up, if she stops sucking her thumb, she can have the toy back. When time passes, however, the child discovers...