Memory boxes hold keepsakes

The boxes are precious, exquisitely decorated with hand-painted scenes. One might feature a downy yellow duckling clutching a leafy umbrella. Another may be adorned by a teddy bear with angel wings nestled on a pillow, or brilliant butterflies flitting across a pale green background.

What makes these papier-mâché containers priceless are the items they will one day hold. These aren’t merely decorative display pieces. They are memory boxes. Someday each one will contain keepsakes like a lock of hair, a plaster footprint, and maybe a pair of booties or a tiny knit hat.

Each month a dedicated group of artists meets at Spokane Art Supply in the Spokane Valley to paint the boxes. The Evergreen Memory Box Artists come from Kettle Falls, Wash., Coeur d’Alene, Post Falls and Spokane Valley.

Joann Ritchie heard about the memory box program from fellow tole painter Joyce Powers. “We’re part of a national organization that paints and decorates boxes which we then donate to hospitals,” said Ritchie. “We supply boxes to Sacred Heart Medical Center and to Kootenai Medical Center. The boxes are given to parents whose child dies in the hospital.”

Ritchie said the program gives the artists a chance to paint together as well as help grieving families. “Our small group of seven donated more than 200 boxes last year.” This year they’ve already finished 105 boxes.

At Sacred Heart Medical Center and Children’s Hospital, Chaplain Michelle Crosby is profoundly grateful for the gift of the memory boxes. “A lot of times we use them in the neonatal intensive care unit,” she said. Often the most fragile premature infants never get to leave the hospital and their parents have few mementos. That’s why Crosby said anything that touched the baby, from the wristband to the tiny blood-pressure cuffs, can be included in a memory box. “No matter how small a little one is – they are treasured.”

When the memory box artists met for their paint-in last month, Ritchie brought a scrapbook filled with letters from thankful memory box recipients, as well as from appreciative hospital staff.

One note was from a woman whose 23-month-old grandson had been beaten to death. She said the box still sits on her daughter’s coffee table. Another note was from a grieving mother who said it took her four years to open the memory box and look at her son’s things.

Sacred Heart gives the boxes to the parents of any child under 18 who dies in the hospital. They also offer them to women who’ve had miscarriages.

The beautifully painted gifts are meaningful to more than just the grieving families. They’re also therapeutic for the hospital personnel who must deal with the heartbreaking deaths of infants and children. “It’s important for the families, but also for us as staff to be able to give them something, no matter how small,” Crosby said. All the medical workers who cared for the child are invited to sign a card that’s placed in the box.

In addition to local hospitals, the boxes painted by the group in Spokane Valley are distributed to the national program and sent all over the country. Ritchie said, “There’s always a list of hospitals waiting for the boxes.”

Evergreen Memory Box Artists purchase the papier-mâché containers and donate their time, talent and paints to decorate them. Ritchie said the group is thankful Spokane Art Supply offers them a place to meet each month, and added that they would welcome new members. “You don’t have to know how to paint,” she said. “Tole painting is a learned technique.” The group would be happy to teach anyone who is interested.

Chaplain Michelle Crosby said the boxes become treasured keepsakes for families who’ve lost a child. She said, “It just speaks volumes that people who don’t even know them are thinking about them.”