Gleaned from CarlyMarie's FB page after the shitstorm from Project Capture Your Grief '13
Helena Antonia
A WORD Picture
She is a leaf on the wind
A song unheard
Frosty mornings
Clear mornings with birds.
She is all that I would have shared with you
Wind, rain, laughter, sun
Curling up, just us ...three.
Bubbles at bathtime
Glitter and glue.
First smile, first tooth
First word, first school,
First reading book and first day at the beach.
She is a leaf on the wind
A song unheard
Frosty mornings
And summers with birds.
Most of you reading this, I hope like hell, have no reason to know that October was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance month, or that an Aussie named CarlyMarie created a community photography project called Capture Your Grief. Each day in October, grieving parents shared photos symbolic of some aspect of their grief after losing a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death. It was the second year of this FB event, which was a source of reflection, inspiration, and healing for thousands. Being public, it fostered community and raised some awareness of this incredibly painful and taboo subject.
Being public, however, it was also subject to the dark side of the internet--trolls who found the page on its very last day, mocked photos of babies (often the only photo that exists), and ragged on grieving parents with so much hate that FB had to shut down the event.
Y'all know I'm a private person, I never post stuff like this (and probably won't on FB either), but I am so mad about this I could bite someone. Please, if you're reading, take a moment today to think about anyone in your life who has been touched by the death of a child, and find some way to be kind to them. The pain carried by parents who've buried children is like no other--yet mostly invisible. When it's spoken aloud, reactions like yesterday's outbreak of douchebaggery happen.
A WORD Picture
She is a leaf on the wind
A song unheard
Frosty mornings
Clear mornings with birds.
She is all that I would have shared with you
Wind, rain, laughter, sun
Curling up, just us ...three.
Bubbles at bathtime
Glitter and glue.
First smile, first tooth
First word, first school,
First reading book and first day at the beach.
She is a leaf on the wind
A song unheard
Frosty mornings
And summers with birds.
Most of you reading this, I hope like hell, have no reason to know that October was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance month, or that an Aussie named CarlyMarie created a community photography project called Capture Your Grief. Each day in October, grieving parents shared photos symbolic of some aspect of their grief after losing a child through miscarriage, stillbirth or infant death. It was the second year of this FB event, which was a source of reflection, inspiration, and healing for thousands. Being public, it fostered community and raised some awareness of this incredibly painful and taboo subject.
Being public, however, it was also subject to the dark side of the internet--trolls who found the page on its very last day, mocked photos of babies (often the only photo that exists), and ragged on grieving parents with so much hate that FB had to shut down the event.
Y'all know I'm a private person, I never post stuff like this (and probably won't on FB either), but I am so mad about this I could bite someone. Please, if you're reading, take a moment today to think about anyone in your life who has been touched by the death of a child, and find some way to be kind to them. The pain carried by parents who've buried children is like no other--yet mostly invisible. When it's spoken aloud, reactions like yesterday's outbreak of douchebaggery happen.