I hesitated for a while.

I’m just not comfortable with public speaking.

Those of you that know me are laughing because you know exactly how outspoken I am. However, with a microphone in front of me, I can guarantee my face is flushed and my heart is racing.

After prayer, I accepted.

How could I pass up the chance to honor Miranda’s legacy by speaking of how great the impact her short life and too soon death have had on me?

I shared on Instagram early that day, to ask that you all would share a prayer or think of me during the time I would be speaking. Some of you asked if I would share my speech with you.

Thankfully, I was given a copy of the video of the Tribute Service, and it is my honor to share it with you.

*At the :30 mark a card will invite you to view the slideshow. Clicking on that will open it in another window (leaving me speaking in the other window) so you can watch the photos while you listen. 

Thank you for walking with me through the ups and downs that grief brings.

If you have experienced loss, I do hope some of these words brought comfort to you.

The post Speaking: From the Heart of a Grieving Mom appeared first on CreativLEI.

Hearing of the terrorist act by a hate-filled gunman at Pulse in Orlando was a punch in the gut. The senseless loss and disregard of the value of life screams through the headlines. As a loss-mom, my first thoughts go to the parents of the men and women who were murdered yesterday morning.

You’ve woken up in the very worst of horrific nightmares.

I started praying over the many facets of your loss. No parent is ever ready to bury their child. No death is easy to bear.

When your child has lost their young life because of fear and hate, there truly are NO WORDS that are sufficient.

I am so sorry that the rest of the country (world) wants to politicize your loss while you are trying to re-learn how to breathe!

I want you to know that I see your tears, I hear the crack in your voice as you wonder if it safe to openly grieve. I know that these days, as you are planning your child’s funeral, are not the time for the world to thrust their expectations on your shoulders as one more thing to bear.

I’ve seen the lists of your children’s names and ages and I am shaken by the youth and promise of potential that was lost.

I am so sorry that you will not look into the eyes of your child again on this earth.

I cannot help but wonder how many of you had just recently come to a place of reconciliation and acceptance of your child’s lifestyle (and recovering from the grief of shedding cultural expectations) only to have the coming years of healing stolen from you, by hate and fear.

I would be remiss to ignore the fact that some of you may have had this devastating phone call or headline be the moment when you were allowed into the place of your child’s life that they had not yet summoned up the strength to share with you. Perhaps they were protecting themselves, or maybe they were protecting your heart or reputation.

I am sorry that our society told them that who they were was not enough.

I am so sorry that you did not have the chance to embrace, love, and accept your son or daughter exactly the way they were without condition.

I know that there is much that was ruthlessly ripped from you that can never be returned.

I weep with you as you mourn.

I cannot hide that I believe in the hope of salvation through Christ. I believe He died for our sins, to reconcile us to God.

I believe that the hope of salvation was extended to your child.

Christ extended forgiveness to the thief on the cross… the promise of Eternity in the last moments before death.

Who am I to assume what He can or cannot accomplish in anyone else’s final moments?

I am sorry that the church that cast out your child, shamed your parenting, and held boycotts over bathrooms, now wants you to fight along side them against the greater evil. You owe no allegiance, you are bearing a burden they can and will not fathom.

All I can say is that I am sorry.

Take your time to grieve. Allow it to be ugly. Allow it to be all shades of messy. Remember your child. Remember all the good. Try your best to forget the bad conversations, the slammed doors, the unanswered questions. Know that you were and ARE a good parent. Know that the love you have for your child does not need to be justified.

I acknowledge that I do not know what it is like to walk in your shoes.

I cannot begin to unwrap the many emotions you are struggling through. I fully understand that every loss is different and I do not dare to compare our losses. What we do share is the label of grieving mother, and with that hand and broken heart, I reach out through prayer and compassionate thoughts.

I know that the coming months and years may bring regrets to the forefront of your mind, I still battle these false beliefs. Cling to the hope, the good, the peeks of joy that come through the unexpected consolations.

Celebrate your child’s legacy, because what others mean for evil, God can and will redeem!

My prayers are with you, newly bereft mothers. I am so sorry that you are now part of this unspeakable sorority.

The post To the Parents of those Murdered in Orlando… appeared first on CreativLEI.

Hello my lettering friends!

I’m so sorry that our schedule is being rearranged a tad. We should have moved to Italic Calligraphy today, but I am finishing my (last minute prep) for the 2to1 Conference.

I know that the calligraphy pen can be a little tricky, and I didn’t want to rush through these assignments. We will pick back up shortly!

I will continue to Periscope a few times daily during the conference… Including having some of my right-handed friends join me!

In the meantime, I have a task for you.

Tomorrow, October 15th, is the International Wave of Light for pregnancy and infant loss awareness.

Some of you who’ve recently joined me for the lettering series may not know that in 2011 I lost my daughter when she was 28 days old.

Each year since I’ve joined the wave of light at 7PM, even the year we were in Disney.

It’s a beautiful reminder of these little souls, lost far too soon.

Tomorrow when I light my candle, I will be writing the names of my daughter and the names of many of my friends’ lost babies.

I would love the honor of writing the name(s) of the child(ren) whom you’ve lost.

I find that one of the hard parts of having a daughter in Heaven, is not hearing and seeing her name as often as I do my living children.

Please add your child’s first name to the comments, or by emailing me. If you lost your baby before you had the chance to name him/her, please let me know and I will draw a heart in honor of that life.

If you know of someone who would be blessed by seeing the name of their lost child written out, please forward this post to them.

Here is the video of the names I wrote to remember during the Wave of Light.

Thanks so much for understanding, and for helping me with this project.

The post Missing Posts? {LoveYourLettering} appeared first on CreativLEI.

Miranda’s 4th Birthday.

Figuring out a title for this post was difficult. Seriously, how in the world do you word how you remember the birthday of your daughter that died? It’s kind of impossible, because it’s so far outside the realm of how things are supposed to be.

There’s a lot that you aren’t prepared for in mothering. Forget milk blisters, hemorrhoids, and mucus. How to handle the legacy of your baby that passed away ranks up there as the biggest ‘never talked about’ parenting situation. It’s one of the things you don’t read in the ‘hey-you’re-gonna-birth-a-magical-unicorn-baby‘ What to Expect books, or ‘you’ll-be-glamorous-and-it’ll-be-pain-free‘ Baby Birth reality shows.

Four years ago, loss became our reality.

This year we should have been planning a 4th birthday party. A preschooler. I’ll admit, it’s more than a little hard to wrap my head around the fact that, to us, she’ll always be 28 days old. Year after year.

As I shared with you last fall, it hasn’t gotten easier. Time, on its own, isn’t a healer.

God gave us a gift through her life… and her loss.

A gift of hope for a Heavenly reunion, and a gift of earthly perspective where rose-colored glasses have been shattered and replaced with bifocals of compassion and empathy.

How do we celebrate her life? How do we honor her legacy?

Miranda’s short life touched many. Only a few of which do we get to realize earth-side. From the earliest hours of her struggle for life, we knew we needed to honor her and glorify God through this bittersweet gift.

Celebrating her birthday and marking the anniversary of her passing matters.

I wish I could say that I knew right away what was the right way to do this. But I didn’t, and I’m still learning. Each year as our family grows, we seek to find the way to meaningfully celebrate.

We haven’t yet found our ‘one thing’, but we have always made some loose plan. I remember always the advice we received in our family bereavement group: No matter what we would or wouldn’t do, make a plan for the day. Big or small doesn’t matter, but don’t let the day arrive with no plan at all.

Some of the things we’ve done in the past:

• Deliver cookies to the PICU.

The staff of the PICU became an extension of our family as they cared for Miranda. It seemed fitting to revisit the place that help our physical memories of her life… except that the PICU as we knew it no longer exists after the addition of the new Children’s Center. Still, many of the staff remembered us and welcomed us and gave us a tour of the new facilities.

• Release balloons.

Environmental concerns aside (seriously, this is not up for debate here), there is a child-like joy to watching a balloon soar to the heavens… and balloons are a must-have for most children.

• Have cupcakes and sing.

It hurts, but sometimes it feels right, to celebrate her birthday the same way we do for the birthdays of our living children.

• Float lanterns.

Sometimes we release them for her birthday, sometimes on the anniversary date. For Miranda’s 1st birthday we decorated the lantern with birthday wishes and the names of children our friends and family have also lost too soon.

• Spread flower petals at her grave site.

The spot in the cemetery that her body was laid has a LOT of rules for what we can’t do. Nothing we leave at her marker stays. Their grounds-keepers remove everything for moving and do not return them. Spreading flower petals is something beautiful we can do, and allow the weather to wash away.

• Pack Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.

One of my favorite legacy items is packing shoeboxes. It is really fun and gratifying to shop for a child on the birthday. The end of September is the beginning of the season when OCC boxes are getting thought of, so it was fun to use Miranda’s birthday as a shopping day for our boxes. We can even use the whole month to put the boxes together, because the anniversary date near the end of October is a good deadline to be ready for collection dates.

• Sponsor a child with a similar birthday.

We first looked into child sponsorship with Compassion International. My heart’s desire was to sponsor a girl close to Miranda’s age. We ended up not finding our sponsor child until a couple years later when Willet visited our church and brought photos of children to be sponsored through Food for the Hungry. We found a little girl with a birthday to match Miranda’s due date.

This year, we had a frozen yogurt date to contribute to a local fundraiser.

Each year, we find what’s right for us to mark her days. It is bittersweet. The opportunities we have to use her dates to bless others really do help to heal our hearts. We’d trade anything to be celebrating with her instead of for her.

We know one sweet day, we’ll see her again.

Do you have a special way of celebrating the birthday of a loved one you’ve lost? How do you honor the memory of their days?

The post Memorial Birthday Celebrations appeared first on CreativLEI.