memorial

At the time Brynn was born, I struggled with what I should do for a memorial of her. Our pastor offered to have a formal service at the church for her or to have a small memorial at our home with just family. The decision to cremate her was easy because that's what we want for ourselves as well. That was a great decision because I hate the thought of burial. Just putting my baby's remains in the ground with the bugs somewhere where I have to go to visit her just seems so cold. I love that I have her remains here at home with the rest of the family in a cute pink baby bootie. But I've often struggled with wondering if I made the right decision not to have a memorial service. I felt that the only people I would want at the "service" would be my close family and we were really already grieving her loss together on a daily basis, so a service just seemed like an unnecessary formality that would be a lot of effort. Because she was so young and no one really "knew" her, I felt there wouldn't be anything to say like you would at a memorial service of someone who had lived on this earth. She only lived inside of me.

I had also thought that people might think it was weird to have a service for what some people viewed as a "miscarriage" (I hate that word).

But I have since worried that I didn't "honor" her properly by not having a service. I kinda feel like I should have or it's what I was supposed to do. I don't know what is right in this situation.

But despite not having a memorial service just for her, I feel I got closure through other services. The first sunday after her birth was all saints day and was about remembering the people we lost this year and we put her hospital bassinet card on the alter to remember her. It was very hard and sad but also very special.

Then Shawnee Mission had a christmas memorial service for anyone who had lost a baby at the hospital and it was very special and I really think of it as her memorial service in my mind. They read her name aloud and we lit a candle in her honor. I loved it.

When I was in labor I knew right away that I should take pictures to remember her, but since she was too young, the nurses told us NILMDTS wouldn't do pictures. Looking back, I don't think the nurse even bothered to try to call them for me. It was late at night and she just assumed they wouldn't, so she didn't even try. I accepted this and just took snapshots of her with our phones. I was not in a state of mind to think of cute ways to pose her or be creative with my photography so her pictures look like nothing more than a specimen laying on a blanket. I saw the Duggars beautiful NILMDTS pictures and I'm so jealous. I wish that I had thought to keep her in my room until the next day and then insist to the day nurse to at least try to get the photographers to come. And if they wouldn't, I wish I would've thought to keep her to at least take daylight pictures of her, maybe wrap her in a pretty blanket, put flowers around her or a tiny hat on her head or pose her in nice ways or do ANYTHING cute. I just wasn't thinking. I was a wreck.

Erik is working on tweaking some of the pictures in photoshop for me so I have something decent to look at/display.

I also have a ring of her birthstone I wear, a memory box and christmas ornaments for her. So, I've pretty much done everything you would do in a memorial service anyway, I've just done it without an audience and while I don't know if I did everything the "right way", I do feel that I have loved her, grieved her, mourned her loss, talked about her and honored her memory as much as I possibly can. She is one of my children, my second daughter and a part of our family.