Every time Gina Ramos looks at her teddy bear, she remembers her father. The bear is a deep indigo color, made from one of her father’s shirts. “It’s a blue shirt I had given him on his birthday. His last birthday,” Ramos said. Her 62-year-old father Jose Womhar Ramos Hernandez died in December.
Claudia Araceli Ramirez Pereira’s bear is blue and white plaid with a touch of brown, made from her father’s favorite winter jacket. “This year he didn’t get to wear it,” said Ramirez. Her father 70-year old father Lorenzo Ramirez died in October.
The women have found comfort in their “memory bears. ”
The memory bears stitched together by Erendira Guerrero, in her small home sewing room are custom keepsakes for the families of some of those who’ve died. “It’s a little bit of their essence from the clothing of their loved ones,” Guerrero said. The items include “shirts, blouses, pajamas, team uniforms” selected by a relative to remember someone who died.