Landon Clifford's widow Camryn Clifford, 19, is leaning on her family for support as she and her daughters cope with the death of the teenage YouTube star.
Landon took his own life in August at age 19, Camryn, who recorded videos with him for their YouTube channel Cam&Fam, first opened up about death in a video posted soon after his passing. In a new video posted on Wednesday, Nov. 11, she told viewers her late husband donated his organs and was cremated, and that she and her loved ones had a small memorial for him. She then got emotional as she talked about how she and her and Landon's daughters, Collette Briar, 2, and Delilah Rose, 5 months, have been coping with their loss.
Camryn said she and the girls were temporarily living with her sister in Florida. She said, "I have the best siblings. Through all of this, they've been the ones who really put a smile on my face when I did not feel like smiling. And we all just have such a close bond. It's really special to me. Being surrounded by family is really what we need right now."
"Going from a two-parent household to being a single parent has been a huge adjustment, way harder than I could've ever imagined and that's even with the help that I get from my family," said Camryn, who wed Landon in June 2019. "It really makes me appreciate all that Landon did for us. He was so helpful. He loved being a dad. Out of everything, he just really loved being a dad. He was so good at it."
Camryn added, "Collette is still really young and can't fully comprehend the situation. All she really knows is that her dad's gone. One day he's here, one day he's not. She has no idea where he went. She's too young to explain that to, even if I tried. One day, that's a conversation I'm gonna have with her but as of right now, she just doesn't get it. For the most part, she doesn't really ask about him until there's something that reminds her."
Camryn said that if Collette sees a photo of Landon, she'll point to it and say, "Daddy" and "kind of look around and be confused." Camryn also said her eldest daughter has a Build-A-Bear with his voice. The YouTube star said, "She'll click the button and it'll say, 'I Love You, Collette,' in his voice and she knows his voice and she'll say, 'Daddy?' She'll look around."
"You can definitely tell she's going through a hard time, though," Camryn said. "She used to be very independent and since he left, she is very clingy to me and very anxious and is almost in a way that she thinks I'm just going to up and leave her too. So if I leave the room to grab a diaper from the other room or whatever, she doesn't know where I'm going, she'll follow me and scream, 'Mommy where you are going?' and grab my hand and won't let me leave her side."
As for herself, Camryn said she has been seeing a counselor and undergoing group therapy to cope with her grief. She also said she has been working out, painting, writing poetry and, per her therapist's advice, working part-time at a restaurant, adding, "It gets me out of the house, it keeps me from laying in bed all day...It's a good escape."
Camryn said she wished Landon was around to see how much their daughters have grown since his death.
"He only saw [Delilah] as this tiny little newborn and she's starting to develop her own personality and I just wish he could see it," the YouTube star shared. "Same with Collette. She is talking a lot. She is so talkative. She is able to hold a conversation now which Landon always said I can't wait till we can really talk to her, we can ask her about things. He was so excited to hear all the questions she has about the world. We were both just so excited to watch them grow up."
Camryn said, "He always got so excited when one of them hit a new milestone. So it's really bittersweet now, seeing them grow and knowing he's not here to see that. I almost want them to just stay as little as they were when he left because it just doesn't seem fair that I get to watch them grow up and he doesn't."
Landon, his wife revealed, was the first loved one she has ever lost. "I had no idea when this all first happened how I would cope with it. Something that a lot of people say to me is I cannot imagine how you feel and I really couldn't imagine how I would feel either," she said. "But you just wake up the next day and you're there and there's kids to take care of and things to do. And it hurts and I miss him and I'm definitely not okay, but I'm alive and I value life so much more now, even though life is really hard right now, I value it a lot more."