[Freado]

As of late, Freado's closet seems to come up in conversation a lot. It's one of the last things that I have not "cleared out" of the house. The day he was taken from me, I had my Husband put all of his toys in a bag and that bag is in another room in the house. I hope one day, I will have the strength to take them all out and photograph each one, before permanently discarding them. When showing people the house for the first time, taking them into our closet was a thrill. Reason being, we had originally built our home in 2001, but then we went through a two year remodel job, which my Husband called an "extreme home makeover" in 2008, and guess what, yep, our closet got bigger. I was always lucky that Freado didn't mind me putting clothes on him. When he was smaller, I would buy Build-A-Bear clothing, a very inexpensive way of "building" a large wardrobe. I have not yet figured out why animal clothing is so crazy expensive! When we traveled, we would find t-shirt souvenirs for him, a Hawaiian button down from Hawaii, a pirate themed t-shirt from the Treasure Island Hotel in Vegas, etc. He wore tuxedos for special occasions, a Santa suit during Christmas, sweaters when it was cold out, and tank-tops when it was hot. Everywhere we went, vet, bank, mall, he was dressed. When we would have company over, he was dressed appropriately, wether it be a casual, semi-formal, or formal affair. Ah, the things we miss... Right now, to go through it all, would be waaayyy tooo painful. I*wasn't even sure what to do with his clothing. I say "wasn't" because not to long ago, I came up with a plan. While our Daughter was in high school I collected all of her t-shirts that she had worn throughout the years. She had them from performances that she was in, sports, mission trips she had taken, and so on. Before she graduated from high school and went off to college, I took them all down to a neighbor's house, who does quilting, to make a t-shirt quilt out of them. A little over four years, Daughter still has and uses her quilt. So, I figure if it works for her, keeping all of those high school memories fresh, then it should work for me, to keep my Freado memories alive. When I can, and think I won't completely break-down, I will take Freado's clothes down to that quilting lady, and have a quilt made out of them. Just the thought of having it made, actually makes me feel a little better.