Second Annual Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day
By: Suzanne Masland, District Director, Morrisville Local Health Office
Last week, performing artist Jon Gailmor and Copley Hospital chaplain Alden Launer, joined the Compassionate Bereavement Coalition (CBC) and many families in celebrating the Second Annual Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
The event included an invocation from Alden Launer and a naming recognition ceremony. Jon Gailmor led attendees in uplifting songs and attendees participated in a lantern release just as the sun was setting over the memorial stone that was dedicated “In Remembrance of Our Children” on this beautiful evening.
The SIMON Project (The Sudden Infant/Child Mourning Network), a resource for education, advocacy and support, and the CBC raised funds to purchase the memorial stone for families who have experienced the loss of a child in pregnancy, to stillbirth, or in infancy. The memorial stone was placed in the Pleasant View Cemetery in Morrisville, VT. The memorial stone will be open to the community and any family who may wish to add their child’s name to the memorial. This will not be a community burial site. Instead, it is intended to serve as a tangible place to recognize and honor those babies who are gone too soon.
The Pleasant View Cemetery trustees donated the site for the memorial stone. The Third Annual Pregnancy & Infant Loss Remembrance Day will take place October 15, 2020 at the Cemetery. The date, October 15, is chosen because it is the National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. This is a day when families around the globe light a candle at 7 p.m., local time, to create a continuous wave of light spanning the globe for a 24-hour period in honor and remembrance of children who have died during pregnancy or shortly after birth.
To add a baby’s name to the stone, call Jenn Chittick at 881-2917 or email Wendy Hubbard, Maternal Child Health Coordinator with the Morrisville Health Department at wendy.hubbard@vermont.gov. Please let either of them know if you want to apply for financial assistance.