Ryan Reynolds at the premiere of Netflix’s “6 Underground” at The Shed at Hudson Yards on Tuesday, Dec. 10, 2019, in New York. Image: Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
The search for a unique teddy bear, which contains a 28-year-old Filipina’s last memory of her dead mother, was amplified by Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds after he offered to pay $5,000 to anyone who could return it to its owner.
Mara Soriano’s backpack, which had the teddy bear, was stolen last Friday, July 24, while she was moving into a new apartment in Vancouver, Canada, as per the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) last Saturday, July 25. Soriano was born in the Philippines and migrated to Canada with her family at the age of nine.
Soriano said she does not care if she could retrieve her iPad and Nintendo Switch, which were also inside the bag, as long as she could get the bear back.
“It’s a reminder of home,” Mara said in the report, explaining why the bear is special. “The bear has a message in it in Filipino. It says ‘I love you,’ but in our language. So it’s very specific and very unique.”
The woman’s mother, Marilyn Soriano, died from cancer in June 2019 at the age of 53.
Mara has since filed a police report in an effort to retrieve the stolen bag, and most importantly, the teddy bear. A couple of CBC reporters have also been appealing on social media to find the missing bear. After Mara’s story went viral, the “Deadpool” star offered a cash reward for the bear’s safe return to Mara, via Twitter last Sunday, July 26.
“Vancouver: $5,000 to anyone who returns this bear to Mara,” Reynolds said, retweeting CBC Vancouver reporter Deborah Goble’s post. “Zero questions asked. I think we all need this bear to come home.”
Vancouver: $5,000 to anyone who returns this bear to Mara. Zero questions asked. I think we all need this bear to come home. https://t.co/L4teoxoY50
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) July 25, 2020
Recalling how she lost her bag, Mara said in the report that she was unloading things from a U-Haul moving van with her fiance when she got a call from a friend.
The friend, who was supposed to help them move into their new apartment, said that he has been hit by van not far from Mara’s apartment. In her “frazzled state,” Mara put her bag down against the U-Haul van to go to her friend. She then drove to her friend and brought him home.
After a few minutes of leaving the bag unattended, the bag was stolen, according to Mara.
The woman said that her mom recorded a message for her and had the recording placed inside the bear before she went inside a hospice.
“At hospice her voice was different. Much softer. Not the mom I grew up with,” Mara was quoted as saying. “That bear is the last memory I have of her speaking in her normal voice.”
Mara added that the bag contains other important documents such as her citizenship card, her and her fiance’s passport and their social insurance cards.
The Filipina said that they were able to check the security footage of their apartment building where they spotted a man “just [take] the bag and run.” Cha Lino/JB
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