From my journal nearly one year ago:Chris and I sent Baker's pictures to some people. It makes me so sad to realize that those are the only pictures we'll ever get to send our family and friends. No Christmas cards, no school pictures. He'll always be a baby.
Thank goodness for the pictures that the hospital staff urged us to take. I wish we had a thousand more. A friend who is a professional photographer contacted me shortly after Baker died and shared that she is a volunteer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. She offered to retouch the pictures and did an amazing job sharpening up the close-up of his foot that was originally so very blurry. Chris thinks that Baker would have been a barefoot water skier given the size of his tootsies.
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Some random thoughts to finish out the month of April:
I spotted this obituary for a baby named Lizzie Marie Horner and loved the words: She was also loved by many aunts, uncles and cousins. Lizzie enjoyed talking to her family and friends through mama’s belly, and loved to kick daddy in the mornings. She will be forever loved and missed.
We didn't put a printed obituary in the newspaper. At the time, it was too much to bear along with the other details of Baker's burial and memorial service. If we had, I would have liked to say something similar.
The most emailed Boston Globe article on Wednesday (until swine flu took the top spot) was
Bereaved fathers find healing in friendship.
The forsythia wreath we placed on the door of Lazy Cat Farm on Baker's first birthday, April 3rd:
Hyacinths from Baker's funeral arrangements blooming in our garden:
9 comments:
I love that picture of Baker's foot. So, so precious.
I'm going to volunteer for NILMDTS... when I can. It's a wonderful service - I wish I'd known about it.
Dalene, you are honoring Baker's memory so beautifully.. I love the flowers and wreath!
I too wish I had taken thousands more pictures.. but we aren't in any state of mind to think about things like that when the moment strikes us.. same thing with the obituary. Baker's foot is too darn sweet too!!
Pictures just weren't possible for us - too late, too long gone to document what our daughter should have looked like. I'll never know. And developing the disposable camera the nurses insisted we have won't tell me, even if I ever decide to develop them.
The one thing I do have, almost an afterthought of one of the nurses, are prints of her hands and feet. I'm so grateful to have this - something tangible that she touched, and images I can wrap my head around and treasure without the wrenching sadness the pictures would bring.
I'm so glad you have such lovely photographs of your beautiful boy. And the flowers on your farm. Lovely tributes, all of them.
But I wish, of course, that you had your boy.
I love tiny little baby feet - that picture is so perfect and precious.
Thanks so much for sharing these photos. What a beautiful picture of Baker's foot. And the flowers are lovely. I'm glad you have some beautiful reminders.
Dalene your memories and memory making are just gorgeous. I'm so glad you had a NILMDTS photographer to touch up the photos...what a gift.
I love the flowers and the pic, what is it about baby feet that make you want to kiss them? But mama, wow, a year...
Such beautiful tributes to your son. I've found it comforting to have physical reminders of life lost, even though the dead are always with us, those things to look at have always given me comfort. (Not being a babylost mama, I can only relate through other loved ones of mine that have passed, and the things that brought me comfort - not the same grief though, I'm sure).
I may have said it before, but I'll repeat my self in that case - I'm floored by the courage you're showing Dalene, in going back to such dark time in such a real way. Hope the little one is well.
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