Their clothes – and our memories

This is a guest post from fellow widow Rebecca Chambers-Farwell

My husband Keith died suddenly, and like almost every widow ever, I was faced with deciding what to do with his clothes.

Then I saw a Facebook post. A widow showing a photo of a memory bear she had had made from their husband’s clothes – and I thought that I’d put my sewing skills to use and try to make my own from one of Keith’s beloved Hawaiian shirts. It was a shirt that I absolutely could not have taken to the charity shop. It was too unusual, too much his, and I could not have coped with running into someone else wearing it.

I showed the bear to others and several people asked me if I would make one for them. And so Becky’s Bears was born, and I made hundreds more memory bears. Fast forward a few years, and many other people now make bears as well, so it was time to think of something a little different.

Then someone asked if anyone makes memory roses from clothes, as her stepdaughter wanted some made from her father’s clothes for her wedding bouquet. I did some research – and couldn’t find anyone offering this service. So once more, I experimented and created my first memory roses in the hope of filling this gap in the market and bringing the bereaved a new way of commemorating their loved ones. When I thought about how to use these roses in weddings, there seem to be so many possibilities. Not just as roses for bouquets, but also for buttonholes and corsages, or for decorating wedding reception tables and gifts. And they are not just for weddings – I’ve put them in vases, alongside photos, and they make perfect floral tributes, and they are a sweet way to use baby clothes to remember those precious early days as little ones grow up.

So I created the Memory Rose Company. I hope this poignant new chapter, arising once more from knowing the pain of loss, will also be one to bring comfort and joy.