My Sweet Friend Tanya

I have a good friend who I love so dearly. She was my neighbor in Pocatello and we were paired up as Visiting Teaching partners. We quickly bonded and a wonderful friendship developed. Then she moved to Florida then Maine and then Hawaii. We don’t get to see each other too much but we visit often. She is so supportive and a great listener. I’ve called her during some of my hardest days and she’s always there for me.

I don’t remember when it was but a while back I gave her a pair of baby boy shoes. I know it was shortly after Gabriel grew out of them and I was telling her how great they were for babies learning to walk. She had her 4th child, a boy (Joshua) getting close to that stage. So as I knew we weren’t having anymore children and Gabriel wasn’t using them anymore I gave them to her for Joshua to use. I believe after Gabie died we talked about them a few times but Joshua was still using them and they were great shoes for him. I had forgotten about those shoes until today when the mail arrived.

This is what came in the mail today:

I will admit as soon as I saw these little shoes fall out of the package tears welled up in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. I know Tanya wanted to send them when I wasn’t feeling overly emotional but just seeing these shoes and holding them in my hands made this day an emotional day. Not a bad emotional day though. I’m just so grateful to an amazing friend who knows me so well and knew that sending these shoes back to me would mean the world to me. When Gabriel passed away we didn’t think to keep any of his clothes. We have a few of his blankets and his blessing outfit but we sent pretty much everything else to DI. I’ve wished several times that I had kept a few of his clothes. Gabriel wore these shoes everywhere! I bought them just for him, they weren’t a hand me down. I remember vividly putting them on his sweet little feet every time we went anywhere. They were my favorite pair of baby shoes through all 5 of my kids.

Thank you my sweet friend Tanya, thank you for sending these back to me, thank you for knowing me so well to know that this would mean the world to me. I Love You!

Look at his little feet..