My Dog Brought Me My Late Daughter’s Sweater the Police Had Taken – Then He Led Me to a Place That Stopped Me Cold

Three weeks after my ten-year-old daughter Lily died in a car crash, I was barely existing. My husband, Daniel, had survived, but he moved like a man who wished he hadn’t. Our house felt frozen in the moment she left it.

One foggy morning I sat at the kitchen table, holding a mug Lily had made me, when I heard frantic scratching at the back door. It was Baxter, her golden retriever mix. His eyes were urgent. In his mouth was something yellow.

Lily’s sweater.

I thought it had been taken with the rest of her things. My knees nearly buckled. When I reached for it, Baxter pulled away and ran through the gap in the fence Lily used to slip through.

I followed him to the old shed in the empty lot.

Inside, behind broken tools, was a nest made from Lily’s clothes. Curled in the middle lay a calico cat and three newborn kittens. Baxter placed the sweater beside them like he was completing a mission.

It wasn’t from the accident. It was the spare Lily had hidden.

She had been caring for them.

Daniel and I brought the little family home. Feeding them, watching them breathe, I felt it — Lily’s love, still alive in the world.

That night, for the first time, I slept.