CUMBERLAND, B.C. -- This is a story about love and laughter in the time of COVID. It begins with Chuck holding up a pair of stuffed animals towards the camera.

“Chuck gave me the monkey,” Faye says. “And I gave him the bear!”

Bear is wearing glasses that are similar to Chuck’s. Monkey has a red bow tied around her neck. 

Long before Bear and Monkey hooked-up, Chuck and Faye did. 

“She was the only girl in the neighbourhood,” Chuck laughs. 

“That’s what he likes to tell people,” Faye smiles. 

She says the real story is that they were best friends, and then Chuck popped the question. 

“Nothing fancy,” Faye recalls with a smile. “He just told me, ‘I love you’ and, ‘Would you like to marry me?’”

She answered yes, before they both promised ‘I do.’

“We really liked each other,” Chuck says. “But over the 47 years the love had grown so much.”

They credit their longevity with laughing through adversity. So when COVID-19 came to town, Chuck put Bear and Monkey to work. 

He started posting pandemic related pictures featuring the stuffed animals on social media. There are more than 25 so far, ranging from the animals wearing masks to washing their hands, to sitting on either end of two-metre rulers. 

“He just took off, all these ideas he could come up with,” Faye smiles proudly. “I think he’s doing a great job.”

According to Monkey and Bear, all the frontline workers are doing the best job (there’s a picture of the animals holding a sign that says ‘Our Heroes’ and lists more than a dozen occupations from from mail carriers to factory workers).

The list also includes the healthcare workers who helped Chuck beat cancer twice.

“[The pictures] might put a smile on their face after they’ve worked so hard during the course of their day,” Chuck says.

He hopes Monkey and Bear will lift their spirits the way they once did for Chuck and Faye. The couple exchanged the animals as gifts — despite his battling cancer — on Valentine’s Day.

Chuck and Faye hope they’ll inspire us to keep loving through life, smiling through sickness, and remaining positive through the pandemic.