This is the heartbreaking moment a tragic 83-year-old dementia sufferer breaks down when she is given a talking teddy – with her late husband’s VOICE.
Grandmother-of-five Jean Walters’s jaw drops when she squeezes the bear and hears Dennis, who died of lung cancer eleven years ago, talking back at her.
The cuddly toy contains a voice-box with Dennis saying: “You’re the best girl in the world for me,” – something he wrote in letters to Jean during his time in the Army.
It was made by Jean’s only granddaughter, Abbie Webb, 27, a month before Dennis passed away and presented to the dementia sufferer on Tuesday.
The video shows the pensioner, of Withywood, Bristol picking the teddy bear up and giving it a huge hug before pacing the room with a huge smile on her face.
Abbie tells her: “I got you a friend sat on the sofa. You can have him – it’s yours.”
Abbie’s little boy Ford, five, then adds: “Squeeze it, squeeze it.”
When she hears her husband‘s voice again, Jean, who struggles with memory loss and gets confused because of her illness, hugs the bear tight and is overjoyed.
“She was absolutely ecstatic,” said Abbie, a nanny who lives with her boyfriend, lorry driver Steve Griffin, 30, in the house opposite her grandmother.
“I got the teddy bear made for my grandma’s birthday in August 2005 because I wanted to do something nice. We are really close.
“She just cried and cried and cried when I gave it to her. She loved it.”
About five years ago, the recording started to get weaker so Abbie had it replaced.
But last month, the new recording also became crackly and eventually stopped working altogether, leaving Jean worried she would never get Dennis’s voice back.
After researching frantically online, Abbie found a company which said they could replace the battery and get the bear working again – and they did the job for free.
Great-grandmother-of-six Jean – who also has three great grandchildren on the way -was reunited with her beloved teddy on Tuesday night.
Abbie said: “When it broke she put on a brave face and said, ‘I have had many happy years with it.’
“But I was distraught and I felt so guilty. It was something we couldn’t get back, with him having passed away 11 years earlier.
“She told me to sew the teddy bear up and said she would just have that, but I really wanted to get it fixed.
“She had been asking me for it back every day and I had to keep lying, saying I hadn’t sewn it back up yet.
“When she saw it sitting on the chair she just hugged it and checked the stitches to see if I had sewn it up properly.
“Then we told her to squeeze it and she was overjoyed.”
“With her dementia, she gets quite confused with emotion and sometimes she loses track of things, so I imagined should was just going to say thanks,” she added.
“It shocked me and all of my family that she was that taken aback by getting it back.
“It has helped her through so much. She listens to the recording every day, in the mornings.”
Jean grew up in Bedminster and met Dennis when she was 12 or 13.
The couple were married for more than 50 years and had three children – Marie, Dennis and Andrew – before he passed away aged 72.
Abbie added: “I would like to thank Brian from Talking Product Ltd. He went above and beyond to help us out and made it all possible. ”
