Grief is a room with no windows and for four years I lived in its shadows. When my husband Daniel passed away he left behind a silence that was louder than any noise I had ever known. I dealt with his absence by preserving his presence; I packed his clothes into heavy cardboard boxes sealed them with thick tape and pushed them into the deepest corner of the hallway closet. I wasn’t ready to let go because those shirts and sweaters were the last physical evidence that he had existed. But children have a way of seeing through the walls we build around our hearts. My fourteen year old daughter Emily eventually asked the question I had been avoiding: what was the plan for Dads clothes? When she suggested turning them into hand-sewn toys for the local orphanage where Daniel used to volunteer I felt a surge of both terror and pride. Daniel had loved those children and Emily wanted to weave his memory into something they could hold.
Our dining room quickly transformed into a chaotic sanctuary of remembrance. Emily borrowed a sewing machine and soon the house was filled with the rhythmic whirring of the needle and the sight of Dads plaid shirts being cut into ears and paws. It was a visceral process. Seeing a stuffed rabbit made from the very shirt Daniel wore on our last anniversary brought me to tears but they were the first healing tears I had shed in years. Emily spent weeks meticulously crafting dozens of unique animals—foxes bears and rabbits—each one a small piece of her father’s legacy. When we finally delivered them to the orphanage the joy on the childrens faces was a benediction. I stood in the doorway watching Emily distribute the toys and for a moment the air felt lighter as if Daniel were standing right beside us his hand on our shoulders.
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