After Trey died, I was understandably lost! I felt I had no purpose, motivation, or reason. One evening, a lady I knew, vaguely through a close acquaintance, asked me if I would sit with her friends who also lost a son; to offer a “shoulder to cry on,” she said. I agreed to meet her and called to invite her to my house for a visit. She asked if she could bring her granddaughter along, and of course, I said yes.

As I waited for my guests, I busied myself with hemming a dress for an AG doll I found at a thrift store, and rehabbed with the intent to gift her to my granddaughter. As I was working on the dress, Eva and her little one had arrived, so I set the doll down on the sofa and answered the door. As they walked in and introduced themselves, we fixed glasses of tea and sat down to talk.

The little girl, Ava, was five and had only lost her daddy a couple of months earlier. Gramma Eva took to raising her. Ava was such a beautiful child, with gorgeous black hair and sad black eyes. My heart hurt for her. As her Gramma and I sat down to chat, Ava noticed the doll I had been working on.  I told her the doll did not have a name and asked could she name her for me? She gently loved on the doll, as she stuffed and re-stuffed a small backpack with a few of the doll’s things. Before long, a couple of hours quickly passed, and Gramma Eva told Ava they must go so Miss Vicki could prepare dinner for her husband.

Gramma told Ava to lay the doll on the sofa and say thank you for the orange juice. After Ava lay the doll down ever so carefully, she turned to take Gramma’s hand with tears pouring down her face! In an effort to distract her, I asked her if she had picked a name for the doll. She gulped back her tears and simply said, “Yes, her name is Dolly.”

As my new friends started to say goodbye and walked toward the door, I said, “Wait a minute, Dolly is talking to me.” I put the doll’s mouth to my ear and said, “Oh yeah? I will ask her!” I then turned to Ava and said, “Dolly would really love to go live with you, because she can tell you will be a good mommy. Would that be alright?” Ava grabbed Dolly and hugged her, saying, “I will be a good mommy. I love her!”

Ava walked down the steps towards the car. She waved at me as they drove away, and as I closed the door, this feeling, like I had just felt a huge healing wave, swept over my broken heart!

As of today, I could not tell you how many dolls we have given away at this point. I vividly remember the day we gifted our 500^th doll!! I was so excited about the number 500, then realized the number did not matter. It was the children who mattered! I didn’t want to get so wrapped up in “WHAT I WAS DOING”, that I lost the beauty of the vision I had!

After all, each and every child was the reason, not a number, THE REASON!

That’s how Trey’s legacy of love began!