The first of the memory bears is done and it went to her dad because:

“He loved her first and he held her first
and a place in his heart would always be hers,
From the first breath she breathed
When she first smiled at him
He knew the love of a father runs deep”.

A couple of months after my step-daughter died, I received a bag of shirts that belonged to her. She loved to wear tank tops and plaid flannel shirts so most of what was in the bag were flannel shirts. When I took the first shirt out of the bag, I put it to my nose to see if the shirt still smelled like her. All her clothes and her house always smelled so good. I remember one time laying on her bed and telling her I was not going to get up because the bedding smelled so good.  I was so disappointed that it didn’t smell like her and in fact had a somewhat musty smell from the storage unit it had been in. I knew she would have been appalled that her clothing smelled this way. Then it hit me that I was holding something that she had worn, something she had enjoyed and that had hugged her body as I wish I could do. I was completely overwhelmed, and began sobbing into the shirt.

It’s still so unreal that she is gone and even more than that, that she chose to leave me and her dad and her son and granddaughter and all the others that loved her. It tears me up that I didn’t realize the amount of pain she was in and that I couldn’t save her. I miss her so much. I’ve lost both my parents and my brother but nothing compares to the pain I feel with losing her. This is the pain I heard about when a child dies and I don’t wish it on anyone.

I often wonder how my husband deals with it. She was only in my life for twenty years and  there were times that we didn’t get along as well as we did the last ten years. But she was his pride and joy and he doted on her. He loved the fact that he could make her laugh. He loved the way she still called him “daddy” and she would say it, drawing out the word “daaaaaddy”. He also loved the fact that she loved me and I loved her and we had a really good time together. She was my daughter and even more, she was my friend. I have enough shirts to make six or seven bears for her brothers and sister and her close friends. And as I sit and sew, I think of her. Sometimes I talk to her, sometimes I cry. Forever is a really long time to miss someone.