FAIRFIELD, Ill. _ Malachi Snyder carries a stuffed puppy around like a blankie, but lately has been putting it aside to climb on his mother's bed to play with two teddy bears.
They're very significant, but the 2-year-old doesn't know it yet.
They are made from one of the St. Louis County police uniforms his father, Blake Snyder, 33, wore before being shot to death on duty Oct. 6.
Malachi's mother, Elizabeth Snyder, 24, believes the bears have a good chance of taking the place of the beloved puppy that she and her husband, Blake Snyder, bought for their son when he was a baby.
"They're very sentimental," she said of the bears in an interview last Wednesday.
It was hard parting with the uniform, even though she still has others, she said. Her sister took it to a woman in Granite City, Ill., who is the wife of a police officer and police wife who arranged the transformation.
And when it came time to cut up the brown and beige fabric, the bears' creator, Thea Gain, 62, of Fairfield, Ill., struggled, too.
"You just know that this is probably one of the last things he wore, the last things that the wife has touched of his, and it's important that you treat it with care," she explained.
Gain estimates that she has made about 500 bears from clothing, quilts and other fabric sent by people from over the country over 20 years. Her husband, Ron, and 86-year-old mother-in-law, Mildred Gain, now help her with the operation.
Each one has a story. Some sad. Some funny.
Snyder's bears were especially touching for Gain.
"I just remember what my boys were like and how they couldn't wait for their daddy to come home and I know that's not going to happen for him," she said.
Gain has made bears for families of other first responders _ typically the children and grandchildren of retirees.
One police uniform arrived from Pennsylvania with a handwritten note: "This uniform was cut off my husband in the emergency room when they tried to save his life," it said.
Gain said she never asks customers for the back story and has no idea how the Pennsylvania officer died. There were grass and dirt stains on the back of his shirt; the widow asked that the stains be on the bear's back, too.
"You feel their emotion and how it must have been hard to send this material to someone sometimes clear across the country and they don't know if I'm reliable or trustworthy," she said. "It takes a little bit of faith on everybody's part."
Faith is what led Gain to make the bears in the first place, Gain said. She started making them in the late 1980s but ran short of time and stopped. She resumed shortly after her father died in 2009 and she heard a sermon urging people to get out of their comfort zones to spread God's word.
The next day, she said, a woman who had bought a bear from her 20 years before called and ordered 10.
"The hair on the back of my neck stood up," she said. "I felt like that was the Lord saying, 'See, I told you to do them.'?"
She puts the phrase, "Bear in mind, you are loved by God," inside lockets on every bear, and calls the business "Thea's Blessing Bears."
"You never know who these bears are going to end up with, and I want people to know that no matter what happens, we are loved by the Lord," she said.
Gain charges from $55 to $120 per bear, depending on the size and design. Some take an hour to make, while others _ such as Snyder's _ can take more than eight.
On Wednesday, Gain's sewing machine hummed as she stitched a bear from the clothing of a baby boy who died. It is for his newborn sibling.
She recalled how much the bears meant to another customer whose 16-year-old daughter committed suicide.
"I want to think it's a comfort, a small way to ease that ache," she said.
Gain smiles as she talks of other bears. She once made a bear from the bridal dress of a woman whose daughter refused to wear it to her own wedding. Not to be outdone, the groom's mother had one made, too. Both bears attended the ceremony.
Gain said she felt honored and humbled to make the bears for Snyder but wishes she didn't have to.
"I want people to respect and love the policemen who put their lives in jeopardy every single day for us," she said. "I shouldn't have to be making these. This should not be."
She embroidered "Always with you" on the bottom of one foot of Elizabeth Snyder's bear. Malachi's reads, "Love you buddy." His mother said that's what his father always said to him when leaving for work.
She recently posted a picture on Facebook of Malachi cuddling the bears, and Gain's phone has been ringing ever since. She's now booked through March.
Elizabeth Snyder said it had been too hard emotionally for her to return to the home she once shared with her husband in Edwardsville, Ill., so she bought a new house in Missouri. There, she said, the bears have a special place.
For now, they're side by side on her bed _ except when Malachi puts his puppy down long enough to take hold of them.
