~An Evening to Remember~

Tuesday night we attended a program hosted by St. Luke's Hospital entitled, "An Evening to Remember our Children" which honors those children who have died. It was a sweet program and we were privileged to meet and mingle with other parents whose little ones had passed.

What a great service St. Lukes offers and we were grateful to be a part!

Before the program we received a candle to light and an ornament to decorate and hang on the Tree of Remembrance. 

Emotions were handled courageously (except the singing always brings a tear) until the end of the program; as we hung our ornament onto the tree we were asked to announce the name of our child into the microphone. That brought tears because it's not often Zoey's name is actually verbalized. We think about her...a lot...but we don't much speak about her out loud. Especially in a room full of peers who can relate and understand the depth and range of emotions.....and I've concluded that crying is the pits! Although it is healing.      

 The odd thing about grief is that there really isn't any closure, no timeline, no set guidelines and each person is unique in the way they process their grief. They spoke about grief during the program and part of a talk one woman shared struck a chord;

"The time will come when you have built a "healed scar" where the pain once was, you will be different. You may, occasionally, still feel sad and have a strong need to cry. Go ahead, give into it...there will be those times."  

Here are some things that still cause a tear or two for us;

This is the only picture we have as an earthly family when all three of us are together. The cloth on Ayla's head was inside Zoey's incubator for three days before she passed. We wanted Ayla to find comfort in having a bit of her sister with her during her passing. The bracelet on Ayla's wrist was lovingly made by our young niece (their cousin)- Zoey was buried with her matching bracelet. 

I never kept a lock of Zoey's hair- I regret that. 

Enough of the sad....

After the program we went up to the NICU to visit the doctors and RN's and show off Ayla's cute Santa Dress. It was late evening and Ayla was soooo tired but still managed to be smiley and cute. Of course, she flaunted her walking skills and newly acquired "blowing raspberries" trick to the delight of the staff.   

Neglected to bring the camera so a grainy cell phone image will have to suffice.

Has it been 22 months already? One of the RN's asked us, "So it's been what...a year?" Ha! It's been 17 months since we left! 

Dear Zoey: sure wish you were here to help your older sister assist in shredding tissue paper into teensy, tiny pieces all over the floor.....