Sometimes it's the things you make yourself that are the most meaningful. Christy Hester of Twin Lake, Michigan, lost husband Richard in January, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t seem to part with the glasses he wore every day. Eventually, she turned to the internet and found the perfect way to keep her husband’s glasses around for many Christmases to come.
Hester lost her husband last winter.
Hester’s 89-year-old husband died on January 5 from heart and lung complications, Good Morning America reported. Hester assured the news program that his death was not related to COVID-19.
The couple shared two children and two grandchildren together.
But when he died, Hester was alone.
"His glasses always sat at the bedside table," she told Good Morning America. "Some things you keep, and some things you don't. I decided to keep them."
Hester found her solution while browsing grief support groups online.
The glasses she treasured could be turned into a Christmas ornament. Using pipe cleaners, acrylic paint and marker, she turned first one pair of glasses and then another into snowmen. She shed “lots of tears" as she made them, Hester admitted.
The grandmother shared her creations on a public Facebook group where it’s since spread like crazy.
“My husband passed away this year,” Hester wrote in her post. “And I believe he is watching over us, so I turned his eyeglasses into an ornament as a nice remembrance!”
More than 22,000 people on the Rainbows over Michigan page have liked the photo of Hester’s ornaments, but she was completely confused by the post’s popularity.
"I'm a middle school teacher, and I said to the kids, 'Am I going viral?'" she told Good Morning America. "I asked what do you guys think is a lot [of likes], and they said 10,000. I said, 'I'm up to 18,000.' So, I went up a couple notches in the cool factor, I guess.
"I've appreciated the prayer and condolences from people I've never met and probably will never meet, because for whatever reason, this has touched their hearts," she added.
Hester remembered her husband as a man with a good sense of humor and a love of his pontoon boat, where he would fish while Hester kept her nose in a book.
The grandmother said she plans to use the ornaments before eventually passing them on to younger generations of her family. She said she’s appreciative of all the attention her post has received and shared how much it has meant.
"With every like and every comment, it was like my husband was saying 'I love you,'" she explained to WXYZ.
