Never thought I'd be considered "inspirational." It's so surreal and bittersweet to know that in someone's eyes I'm inspirational.
Today, I'm so honored to be featured on my friend Lindsey Henke's blog. She's got a series going on during the weekends where she spotlights fellow loss moms and interviews them to find out how they are helping the child loss community.
Lindsey is such an inspirational woman herself. Through her blog and through her project "White Signs of Grief" she keeps her beautiful daughter, Nora's, memory alive. After Nora was stillborn in December of 2012 at 40 weeks 4 days, she is now left to mother a precious memory. On her blog she always offers up some way to help others who are grieving the loss of a child. I always walk away after reading with a renewed hope and more ideas on how to keep my tiny angel's memory alive.
Thank you to Lindsey for your most generous donation as well as for reaching out and offering up your space for me to speak about how my loss has affected me and to let others know about the event we are having this month in Katy, TX to honor children who have gone too soon.
Friends, you may remember that my sweet friend Franchesca Cox and I hosted the first annual Light The Night With Love last September. Well, the event was so far reaching, so well received and so inspiring for Fran and I. We released over 200 sky lanterns in memory of over 350 angels from all over the world. Over 100 grieving the loss of little ones joined us that day (in real life) as so many hundreds more joined us in spirit. The night of the event, after saying our goodbyes to new and old friends, Fran and I knew in our hearts that we had to have an event like this again - annually!
This year, we have reserved the pavilion at the same park and are still accepting names to be written on sky lanterns to release to Heaven on September 14, 2013 in the evening. Currently we have almost 700 baby names submitted and over 47 families who plan to attend the event. We have three local loss moms (Angela Bickford, Stormy Mitchell and myself) who will speak about loss, love & hope. The message we want other loss families to learn by hosting this event is that there are others out there who care, remember your child and want to honor your child who has gone before you. We want you to feel welcome and know that this day was created with all of our children in mind – and the visual you can get if you picture all of our babies in Heaven watching us release sky lanterns in their memory – is priceless.
Joining Fran in co-hosting this lantern release each year has allowed my heart even more healing. Knowing that I’m helping to organize an event to honor other families who have lost; in memory of Noah Joel & Jenna Belle in Heaven; brings me great comfort and peace.
If someone reading this would like their baby (or babies) to be remembered on September 14th by having a sky lantern released to Heaven, please sign up here. If you are local to the Katy/Houston, Texas area, we would love to have you join us for the event. Please notate on the sign-up form that you plan to be there.
We hope to meet you at the event and if you can't make it in real life, we promise to honor and recognize all babies and children gone too soon at Light The Night With Love 2013 on your behalf.
Love,
Amanda
{thank you to my sweet friend Stephanie for editing this photo for me last year}
