THE ORNAMENTS THAT WE RECEIVED IN REMEMBRANCE OF SAMUEL AND OUR MISCARRIAGE, TO HANG ON THE REMEMBRANCE TREE.
HERE IS MY SWEET PRECIOUS JOJO... WHEN WE WERE WALKING OUT FROM THE CHURCH TO WHERE THE CEREMONY WOULD BE HELD, I SAID TO HIM, "JOJO THIS A TIME THAT WE CAN REMEMBER BABY SAMUEL AND THINK ABOUT HIM." HE THEN SAID BACK TO ME, "BUT MAMA I THINK ABOUT SAMUEL ALL THE TIME.:)"I AM CONSTANTLY STRUCK BY HIS INNOCENT FAITH; SO HONEST AND SWEET IS OUR JOJO:)
THIS IS OUR MEND TULSA CHAPTER DIRECTOR MICHELE (IN THE MIDDLE) AND MARCIE AS THEY READ THE NAMES OF ALL THE BABIES WE WERE REMEMBERING YESTERDAY.
OUR WALK TO THE CEREMONY
SOME REMEMBRANCE ITEMS THAT SOMEONE BROUGHT IN TO SHARE...
Tulsa's first Walk to Remember ceremony was beautiful. God blessed us with beautiful weather. The boys and I worked really hard helping to set up the night before and the morning of... but when it came time for the ceremony I could totally feel my focus change, and I felt just like a participant... my focus was on my babies, the ones already with Jesus...
The whole ceremony was so touching and emotional for me. I am not sure anyone can fully understand how I describe what it meant to me, unless you maybe have experienced the loss of a child yourself... but I will try to explain.
To see all of my MEND friends and to know the stories of their babies lives in detail, and to be able to remember their babies with them touched my heart deeply. To know the great support I have felt from them, the full acceptance of my grief, their encouragement over the past 2 years that I would make it through the sorrow and despair I have felt at times made the ceremony take on a whole new meaning for me. To be able to spend this time focusing on my sweet Samuel and the other baby the Lord blessed us with for such a short time early in 2010 is something I needed to do.
I have to quickly explain about baby Joel... because Joel was a baby that we were going to adopt but that was stillborn at 28 weeks, I didn't know if we should mention him in our losses. I am torn... If that precious boy would have been ours we would have mentioned him. With adoption you never know if the birthmom will change her mind or some other family member would come forward... there are a lot of what ifs... And for some reason I didn't feel a right to claim him so to speak... Does that make sense?
This is where the confusion comes in for me. We absolutely love Joel's birthmom and her family. But I really doubt that they do anything to remember his life. I only say that because I think for them, they really wanted to move forward with this young girls life, and not really focus or remember the situation. When Joel was born, they wanted us to go to the funeral home, make all the arrangements for the service and burial, and gave us all the remembrance items from the hospital.
I really feel like every single life that God creates, whether for 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 years or 50 years deserves to have its place in a family. They deserve for their life to have value to someone and to be honored and remembered. So we may have to include Joel next year for our family. I will have to talk to Greg about it.
Back to the ceremony... there was something about being pregnant that made the ceremony a blessing too... this baby will be Samuel's little brother. This baby will in no way EVER be a replacement for Samuel. But he will hear all about his precious big brother whose very short life blessed us so greatly.
There were many tears shed, by me of course, and by some of the kids. It felt good:) It felt good to share the hope that we have for eternity in heaven with our Savior and our babies. It felt good to publicly remember our Hintz babies.
I remember that I prayed for months, probably for well over a year that the Lord would allow me to some day be able to look back on Samuel's life with joy in my heart. I can honestly say that now I can... not always, but some days I truly can say I do feel joy when I think of him... I can see how God is using Samuel's story to encourage others... the pain is still there, brutally painful at times still, but I know my heart is being healed and put back together by a very gracious God, who has held me through it all!
THIS IS OUR MEND TULSA CHAPTER DIRECTOR MICHELE (IN THE MIDDLE) AND MARCIE AS THEY READ THE NAMES OF ALL THE BABIES WE WERE REMEMBERING YESTERDAY.
OUR WALK TO THE CEREMONY
SOME REMEMBRANCE ITEMS THAT SOMEONE BROUGHT IN TO SHARE...Tulsa's first Walk to Remember ceremony was beautiful. God blessed us with beautiful weather. The boys and I worked really hard helping to set up the night before and the morning of... but when it came time for the ceremony I could totally feel my focus change, and I felt just like a participant... my focus was on my babies, the ones already with Jesus...
The whole ceremony was so touching and emotional for me. I am not sure anyone can fully understand how I describe what it meant to me, unless you maybe have experienced the loss of a child yourself... but I will try to explain.
To see all of my MEND friends and to know the stories of their babies lives in detail, and to be able to remember their babies with them touched my heart deeply. To know the great support I have felt from them, the full acceptance of my grief, their encouragement over the past 2 years that I would make it through the sorrow and despair I have felt at times made the ceremony take on a whole new meaning for me. To be able to spend this time focusing on my sweet Samuel and the other baby the Lord blessed us with for such a short time early in 2010 is something I needed to do.
I have to quickly explain about baby Joel... because Joel was a baby that we were going to adopt but that was stillborn at 28 weeks, I didn't know if we should mention him in our losses. I am torn... If that precious boy would have been ours we would have mentioned him. With adoption you never know if the birthmom will change her mind or some other family member would come forward... there are a lot of what ifs... And for some reason I didn't feel a right to claim him so to speak... Does that make sense?
This is where the confusion comes in for me. We absolutely love Joel's birthmom and her family. But I really doubt that they do anything to remember his life. I only say that because I think for them, they really wanted to move forward with this young girls life, and not really focus or remember the situation. When Joel was born, they wanted us to go to the funeral home, make all the arrangements for the service and burial, and gave us all the remembrance items from the hospital.
I really feel like every single life that God creates, whether for 5 days, 5 weeks, 5 years or 50 years deserves to have its place in a family. They deserve for their life to have value to someone and to be honored and remembered. So we may have to include Joel next year for our family. I will have to talk to Greg about it.
Back to the ceremony... there was something about being pregnant that made the ceremony a blessing too... this baby will be Samuel's little brother. This baby will in no way EVER be a replacement for Samuel. But he will hear all about his precious big brother whose very short life blessed us so greatly.
There were many tears shed, by me of course, and by some of the kids. It felt good:) It felt good to share the hope that we have for eternity in heaven with our Savior and our babies. It felt good to publicly remember our Hintz babies.
I remember that I prayed for months, probably for well over a year that the Lord would allow me to some day be able to look back on Samuel's life with joy in my heart. I can honestly say that now I can... not always, but some days I truly can say I do feel joy when I think of him... I can see how God is using Samuel's story to encourage others... the pain is still there, brutally painful at times still, but I know my heart is being healed and put back together by a very gracious God, who has held me through it all!
2 comments:
That was such nice but sad day I love you.
Louis
What a special day to remember. That is so incredible to have something visual to honor those precious little lives. I'm so thankful, how MEND has blessed your life and how it's been such a safe place to help with the past two years. How can it possibly be two years ago? I'm thinking about Samuel a ton, so I know you must really be going through a lot this time of year. You can trust that I will continue to pray as you long for that little man and miss the other little angels too. Love to you friend! I'll get you called soon.
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