“She was my youngest,' Brendan Hoffman said. 'It hurt me a lot, really bothered me a lot. I lost a lot of faith.”
As time went on, he got better, putting in long days each fall at his growing workshop. And the dollhouses — many of them storybook Victorian creations — got bigger, sturdier, prettier, more ornate.He typically started the day after Labor Day each year, working six days a week,12 hours or more, into the Thanksgiving holiday. It was hot in his garage, even with his big industrial fan turned on, but he kept working so children could get a dollhouse from Santa.For Hoffman, it was therapy.
That changed in August when he went to the home of Anna Hopson, 8, of Jacksonville, who a few years ago had received one of his dollhouses, a blue bungalow. She put it on her dresser, kept her favorite toys in it and told stories about the make-believe family who lived inside.The Dreams Come True designers recreated that dollhouse in Anna's room, complete with windows and a mailbox and a kitchen. “It's her house, come to life," Hopson said. “They were able to take Anna’s love for the dollhouse and make it real.”
For the last six weeks of his daughter's life, she stayed at the hospice center on Sunbeam Road. He took a leave of absence from his job and remained with her around the clock as her condition worsened. Toward the end, a minister told him she likely wouldn't pass away as long as he stayed, as sick as she was. So he vowed to never leave.
He did all that, including the book,"Daddy's Promise" , in which he told about her diagnosis and death, and the journey they took together. Agonizing about giving it up, he talked it through with his wife Cathy, to whom he's been married more than 25 years.
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