Site to share their sorrow
Many of us know someone who has miscarried or lost a baby. Often people can’t understand the grief that follows for the parents who ache for the person their baby might have become. To them, that child was very much entwined in their future – a life they’ll never get a chance to know, and that is a big part of their sorrow.
Groups including Share “Caring to Share,” a support group that helps families deal with child loss, understands the need for support and counseling, and members meet once a month for people in emotional need. Sheryl Hanna, a registered nurse at Kootenai Medical Center, is the project coordinator, and from that group, Share Hope Inc. evolved. Most of its members are parents who’ve lost a child. They feel that being involved gives them a purpose and helps with their own healing.
“I’ve always worked in perinatal loss here at the hospital,” said Hanna. “In our support group parents can come and just talk and share their feelings, and it works. Losing a baby isn’t like losing Uncle Joe, because everybody knew him. Nobody knew the baby, but Mom and Dad, and society has a hard time grasping what they’re going through.”
Many times in preterm babies there is no grave to visit, leaving the parents feeling lost, as if they have nowhere to go that is special for their child
Dexter Yates, director of Yates Funeral Home, knew Hanna was searching for a place for parents to go. He told her about the Hope Cemetery at Eighth and Gilbert, an old family cemetery with graves dating back to the 1800s. It fell into disrepair and became overgrown with weeds and bushes. Hanna called the owners of the cemetery and told them what her group had in mind. The family donated the three-quarters of an acre to her nonprofit organization.
Hanna, along with Dwight Bershaw, a landscape architect, and others in the group tossed around ideas on what they could do with the overgrown cemetery. They decided to transform it into a place of beauty and tranquility, a place where people can go to walk the trails and sit in the courtyard or on one of the granite benches scattered around the park. It will be known as, Share Hope Memorial Garden. There will be an arched entrance and gate where the Path of Understanding begins and meanders through the natural wooded areas. There will be lawns and a unique courtyard made of large and small paver stones. These stones can be purchased, and the price will include engraving, such as, “Kaitlyn, We love you, Mommy and Daddy.” The designers also plan to place an angel at the center of the courtyard. “We’d like to donate the Memorial Garden to the city when we’re finished,” said Hanna.
The Share Hope Memorial Garden is not meant to be a cemetery, other than to the graves already there. It’s meant to be a park for people to come and think. Names of lost babies or children will be engraved on the stones, and those children’s families can feel like they have a place that is special to them.
A lot of work and money goes into a project of this magnitude. “The nurses have been awesome,” said Hanna. “They’ve had fundraisers and made quilts that we’ve raffled off. The doctors, obstetricians and even surgeons have given me donations.”
For the last few years they’ve held two work parties a year, cleaning up garbage and debris. They brought in specialized machinery to grind out the old roots and clear the area. They’ve already laid sprinkler pipe and intend to lay more. They’re also planning a fence for the perimeter and lighting throughout.
“We’ve had some great groups help us with our work parties,” Hanna said. “We had exchange students from Holland and Japan one year. Another time the Thrivent people came – they’re an affiliate of the Lutheran Church – and they were hard workers. They brought lunch and a thousand dollars worth of gravel. They were amazing.” The group has had several Boy Scout troops earn their badges breaking a sweat at the Share Hope Memorial Garden. Another work party was held last Saturday.
“I think what started this for me is, my infant brother died and I grew up an only child,” said Hanna. “I’ve always missed not having a brother, and I’m going to place a stone in honor of him, so I have something to remember him by when I come here.”