A Cornelia family asked their community for help tracking down a lost package containing something precious on Tuesday: a teddy bear made from the shirts of a grandfather and grandson that passed away this year. A day later, they’re celebrating locating it.
The bear was shipped with FedEx, and Keith Cope, who lost his father and his son within two months of each other this year, waited for the arrival of the bear his niece made.
“My cousin made a stuffed bear for my dad, and the bear was made out of my brother’s shirt,” Keith’s daughter, Breanne Cope, said. “My brother passed away at the end of June; and then there is a little heart on the bear that was made from my grandfather’s shirt, who passed away in August. So my dad has lost his son and his father in the span of about two months.”
When the FedEx delivery notification came in that the package containing the teddy bear had arrived and been signed for, the family was at a loss. The package had been signed for, but not by any of them.
“When we look up the proof of delivery, someone named ‘S. Taylor’ signed for the package, but that’s all we know,” Cope said on Tuesday. “We don’t know who ‘S. Taylor’ is. We don’t know where FedEx delivered it to.”
She says her family had reached out to FedEx for more information on the package and where it might have been delivered, but they hadn’t received any further information from FedEx. That’s when she reached out to her community to keep an eye out.
The day after asking for the community’s help, Cope’s father got a call Wednesday morning from FedEx, who had seen Now Habersham’s article and wanted to help.
FedEx was able to track down where the package had been delivered, and the family is making arrangements to get the bear home. Tuesday, Cope told Now Habersham that getting the bear back would be “a sign of hope.” A day later, that sign is alive and well in the bear.
She says she worried the bear might never make it back, and as much as she wanted to have hope, waiting to hear from someone about the lost package was trying.
“It’s a relief to know we have it back and my dad can have comfort,” Cope says. “My family did reach out to me and thank me and the community for helping find the bear.”
Breanne remembers her brother, Sutherlan Cope, as one of the smartest people she’s ever met. He was a student at the University of Georgia at the time of his death and was an Ed Schrader Presidential Scholarship recipient at Tallulah Falls School in 2019.
“He was an absolutely incredible young man,” Cope says. “He was kind, funny, loved his family, loved his friends. Just one of the most genuine and kindest people you would ever meet.”
Cope says Sutherlan was always smiling and laughing, and that she never saw him get angry with anyone. She says he would have given someone the shirt off his back if they’d needed it.
Her grandfather, James Cope, was much quieter and more reserved than her brother, she says. But Breanne says he always had a joke up his sleeve.
“He was always quietly picking on us, but in such a loving way,” she says. “He would always have something to make us laugh.”
He loved to garden, too. Cope and the rest of her siblings have started filling their homes and yards with flowers in his, and their brother’s, memories. “It gives us something to kind of hold on to,” she says.
Now, she’s savoring the feeling of knowing a little bit more comfort has made its way to her family.
“Nothing can bring my brother and grandpa back,” she says. “But I know how much having a piece of them means to me and how much I wanted that for my dad.”
