Andrea Remke was devastated when her husband, Matthew, died of cancer in November. After his passing, Remke and the couple’s four young children were left to pick up the pieces of what was once their happy six-member family.
“I don’t know if we really ever saw it coming,” Remke, 42, of Villa Hills, Kentucky, tells PEOPLE. “I feel like it’s a nightmare I just wanna wake up from. The kids are little, the girls talk about daddy a lot and they miss him and the little one draws pictures of him all the time with angel wings on.”
She adds: “The little one says, ‘I cried at school today, mommy.’ ”
Matthew, 41, was diagnosed with an “aggressive” tongue cancer in December 2015, and underwent radiation, chemotherapy and even had his tongue removed. The cancer eventually spread to his lungs, Remke says.
“He was sick for a while and it was hard because he wasn’t the same person. Toward the end he couldn’t talk very well. He spent those last several months and weeks just in a chair and very sick,” Remke tells PEOPLE. “In the back of my mind, I thought that he was going to get better. So in November when he passed, it was so much grief I had. So much guilty and resentment for things I never got to say or things I didn’t do for him.”
In the weeks after Matthew’s death, it pained Remke too much to look at all of his clothing in their bedroom. So, she donated some to charity, but couldn’t bear to part with Matthew’s old, well-worn T-shirts. Remke was initially hesitant when a friend offered to take the shirts and have them made into a blanket, but she eventually handed them over. She presented the finished product to her kids earlier this month.
“They all wanted to be under this blanket. They love the blanket. It’s special. They were like, ‘I remember when Daddy wore this one,’ ” Remke tells PEOPLE. “We’re with it every night. I came in last night and my son was on the couch under the blanket… It’s like a comfort to them. I just always want to try to keep him alive … This blanket really helps because it’s so him and all these shirts are just him.”
Remke shared photos of the blanket on her blog, Kentucky Mom to Twins and More, and the post, titled “Wrapped up in Daddy,” quickly made its way around the Internet. As for the family, the pain of losing Matthew is still fresh.
“It’s just been really sad here lately,” she says. “With my friend having this blanket made for us, it kind of keeps a little piece of him around us. This blanket has just kind of become a way that the kids can remember him and kind of be next to him in a way. Every shirt has a memory and the kids like to hear about the memories.”