We have a brand new Jellycat friend in the Seren household, but before I properly introduce you to him, I’d like to introduce you to someone else: my dad.

2020 was the year my best friend, WeeGee, died. It was also the last time I saw my dad. He’s the most intelligent person I’ve ever known — my Google before Google existed. He’s also funny, artistically talented, caring, and kind. He was the kind of dad who came with me to every orthodontist appointment, making jokes to keep me calm in the waiting room, and finding “Where’s Wally” in the sticky communal children’s books, knowing that after a while, I really needed to move on to the next one.

He was the kind of dad who, on Sonic 2 release day, called my school — making funny faces at me the whole time — to tell them how “poorly” I was when I was actually just excited to spend the whole day playing video games with him. He even commemorated the day by buying me a Tails plushie because I was obsessed with Tails’s cuteness. Tails became symbolic for me, too, as he allowed me to play games with my dad; Sonic 2 was two-player, so whenever I hugged Tails, I thought of that day. On holiday, when my mother went off on one of her self-entitled, rage-fueled rants, he bought me a rabbit plushie with huge ears to cheer me up and then played cards with me as the plushie, doing “higher or lower” with the rabbit’s ears. He was so full of emotion, compassion, and empathy that even when we sat in complete silence, I knew he loved me because I could feel it.

I could also feel something else: a war raging in his mind. My dad has faced some really deep struggles, the kind that made him want to escape from everything more than once, leading to hospital stays. I share his deep-rooted need for avoidance, and my dad is what happens when that need is left unchecked. I try to anchor myself to the Earth and to the things and people I love to come back, but it feels like my dad can’t do the same. When I was younger, he would escape, even when he was in the room with me, retreating into his mind or, on weekends, into the pub. Now, he escapes for years at a time, only to come back for a few weeks and disappear again. He’ll live somewhere briefly, then move so I have no idea where he is or if he’s okay. Despite making microchips for computers, he doesn’t use phones, so I can’t call or text him. When I try to grieve his absence, I get caught up worrying if I’d even know if something happened to him — I’m not sure if I’m even his next of kin. I find myself checking announcements from time to time, hoping that no news is good news.

It’s really hard to allow myself to grieve for someone who is both here and not here. He’s my Schrödinger’s Dad, both present and absent. I even struggle with which tense to use when I write about him: past or present? My brain naturally switches between the two, subconsciously reflecting my deep-rooted sense of him being both simultaneously. I find myself comparing him to WeeGee — and, well, my dad might still be alive, so it feels like I can’t let myself be as sad about it. I fully understand and empathise with his mental health struggles because I’ve been through something similar with my own inner battles. But it turns out that no amount of empathy, understanding, or acceptance of “this is just what he does” can stop me from missing someone I love so much. I haven’t seen or spoken to WeeGee since 2020, and the same is true of my dad.

It’s also exhausting to go through this process repeatedly. The last time I saw him was at the end of 2019, then 2020, and before that, I hadn’t seen or heard from him for years. Every time he leaves, I have to start this process all over again. Sometimes, I feel it’s pointless to even try to process it because he’ll eventually come back only to leave again. Part of me thought, too, that if I allowed myself to be upset, I’d have to accept that he hurts me — but I know he’s not living this way intentionally. It’s almost as if I feel that being upset would be passing judgment on him or “offending” him in some way.

What I want you to know is that my dad wasn’t a “went out for a pint of milk and never came back” dad. His absences weren’t about escaping the responsibility of being a father — they were about facing his own mental health battles, some so big they sometimes pulled him away. He was present in every way he could be, with fierce intelligence, humour, creativity, and love that shaped who I am. That’s the dad I know, and that’s the dad I want you to know, too. We’re all more than what we struggle with, and my dad, to me, is so much more than the challenges he faced.

Enter Roxy

Recently, on Instagram, I saw a Jellycat fox and fell in love instantly. I’ve been making lovely connections with fellow plushie enthusiasts on Instagram, and I discovered this adorable fox on my friend Amanda’s page (or Bartholomew Adventures, as she’s known on Instagram). Amanda is so lovely; she gets excited with me about giant penguin babies in Melbourne, penguin plushies, Bartholomew Bear, and now foxes! She has helped me with my penguin plushies, which are bittersweet to me due to their connection to my friend WeeGee. Amanda reminds me of nothing but the sweet. She constantly shows me how a shared love of anything can create a bond, how shared excitement can amplify your own, and how important these connections really are. Now my penguins feel even more comforting to me — definitely more sweet than bitter.

It makes it all the more meaningful that I first saw the fox on her page, as her fox reminded me of my dad. I thought, maybe I can do the same thing with the fox for my dad that I did with the penguins for WeeGee.

At the time, I didn’t fully understand why I thought of my dad when I saw this fox, but he seemed a bit like my dad — a creature of the shadows, with stealth and cunning, but with eyes that give away his softness, playfulness, and sweetness. I had to add him to my cart immediately, but he was out of stock everywhere until I finally tracked him down a few days later on morethanjustagift.co.uk.

Through some independent therapy, I remembered my Sonic 2 memories and Tails the plushie. The fox was delivered around the same time I was reconnecting with these good memories, so I began using him for emotional grounding and as a way to remember all the lovely things about my dad. Now, the fox is a symbol of my good memories with him because those moments do exist. For a long time, I avoided the good memories due to their bittersweet nature — they reminded me of my dad’s “present while not present” way of being and highlighted his absence. But now, I’m finding comfort in these memories and in grieving my dad.

I decided to name my fox Roxy, which was also my cat’s name. When I was 10, my dad finally let me have a pet cat. He spent days researching names in his books, as giving someone a name had to be deep and meaningful. Funnily enough, he actually named me that way, too. He came up with Roxy for my cat from Greek mythology (and, funnily enough, I just found out that Roxy can mean “little star” — my first Jellycat bear is named Seren, which means star in Welsh. Wow, we really are quite similar!). Roxy the cat was also ginger, so this fox reminds me of her as well, connecting back to my dad.

This whole experience with Jellycat penguins and foxes has shown me that just because something is bittersweet doesn’t mean you have to hide from it. After all, if you hide, escape, or deny its existence, you miss out on all the sweetness, too. There is comfort in memories, even if they are bittersweet, and now I have a little fox to accompany me whenever I need to remember that.

And with this post I have finally solved the question that so many people have queried for years, “What does the fox say?” – the fox says, “comfort, memories and connection”.

Continuing my blogging tradition that WeeGee started, I leave you with this song, my dad loved The Cranberries and so do I. This song feels particularly perfect and poignant. “Understand what I’ve become, it wasn’t my design, and people everywhere think something better than I am, but I miss you….”