What Do We Do With These Things?
Her favorite comfy PJs which still smell like her.
The sweater my grandma knitted at the age of 99, energized by the life of a beautiful, new baby great-granddaughter.
The dress she wore for her kindergarten commencement.
The tie-dye t-shirt she made at camp the day before she drowned.
What do we do with Roxie’s clothes? And toys? And books? And shoes? And headbands?
Everything our girl wore or touched is now sacred. It’s all we have left of her. What do we do with all of it?
We hold onto to it.
Like our indelible love for Roxie, her things no longer have a place in the world. But if we hold on, we have moments to believe she will never fade from our memory. We grasp her stuffed animals at night—just as she would—searching for comfort in a foreign world, realizing we will never return to the life we once had.