Earth Day - Recycle Buttons

In honor of Earth Day, I did a crafty project this weekend. 

A friend of mine is willing to make a quilt for me using my daddy's shirts.  (He recently passed away in July.  We miss him so much - more than I can put into words.)

I decided that I would cut the buttons off the shirts before sending them to my crafty quilting friend.  This was a harder process than I thought.  Not the actual process of cutting of the buttons, but the overwhelming amount of emotions. 

I am okay with using the shirts, but I am not okay with what it means. 

It means my daddy will never wear them again.  

It means I will never see him in those shirts.  

It means he is not longer here to go places with me.  

It means we won't be going on vacations.

It means I come home to an empty house (except for Gizmo).  

It means I don't have anyone to cook for anymore.

It means I can't talk to him any more.  

It means my best friend is gone.

I sat and cried for a long while.  Gizmo knew that something was wrong and he sat with me.  He tried to cheer me up by bringing me his toy.  He kissed away my tears.  I know that I can't say, "Daddy", because that confuses him and he thinks that he is here or that he will be coming home and Gizmo will go sit in the entry way, yapping every once in a while, as if to say, "Hurry up, we are waiting on you."  I think that Gizmo knew those were daddy's shirts.  He sat on them, sniffed them, and at one point wouldn't even move.

So, we took a break, collected ourselves, and started again.  We powered through and managed to get a collection of buttons.  Now we have a lot of buttons, different sizes, shapes, and colors.

Now a quick trip to Michael's to get some tools, jump rings, and a chain.........

We managed to make a necklace!  

We did right by the Earth and daddy would be proud!