Jill Williams, executive director at the local Life Choices Care Center
GREENFIELD — An upcoming service is designed to give families who’ve suffered the loss of a baby a place to grieve.
Life Choices Care Center and Brandywine Community Church are partnering on a Pregnancy and Infant Loss Memorial Service. It’s set for 6:30 p.m. Oct. 15, which is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.
“There’s a lot of families out there that have experienced this loss,” said Jill Williams, executive director of the center in Greenfield. When some friends of a family may not have known about the pregnancy yet, navigating the loss can feel complicated or isolating.
“Hopefully we’re going to bring together a lot of families … recognize that their baby’s life had meaning,” Williams said. “God does have a plan and purpose for every life, no matter how small.”
The service at Brandywine’s pond will begin with some worship music. Then Bethany Bruner, Brandywine’s director of women’s ministry, will speak.
“I hope to convey that we — the collective Body of Christ — are here to to pray for, support, and comfort those who have lost babies, but remind them that PERFECT comfort comes only from God,” Bruner wrote in an email.
” … I also plan to reiterate the validity of their grief by affirming the sanctity of the life lost. After all, the first person to recognize and respond to Christ’s divinity was an unborn child (John the Baptist in his mother’s womb).
“My hope is that families attending this event feel comforted and that they feel seen.”
Then those attending will receive dissolvable rice paper, on which they can write a letter to their baby before releasing the letters into the church pond. “It’s like you’re releasing your baby to God,” Williams said.
Ethan Maple, pastor of Mt. Comfort Church, said such services are an important resource for families. Each December, Mt. Comfort partners with Community Health in what has become its Longest Night service. Community Health invites the families that have experienced loss.
“Services that center around infant and pregnancy loss provide a much needed reminder that you are not alone in your sadness,” Maple wrote in an email. “The community grieving together has provided a safe space for stories to be told, tears to flow and healing to begin. For some it’s the first time they’ve been able to say a name, giving identity and recognition to the life that was lost.”
Williams said the aim is to release the letters into the pond by 7:15 p.m. Other such services around the country will plan similar gestures, such as lighting a candle or releasing lanterns, for that time. Coordinating the timing is meant to further contribute to the feeling of solidarity — “being a part of something bigger,” Williams said, “and recognizing we’re not alone.”
Pregnancy and Infant Loss Memorial Service
When: 6:30 p.m. Oct. 15
Where: pond outside Brandywine Community Church, 1551 E. New Road (There are benches around the pond, or you may bring a blanket for seating.)
Who: Anyone still grieving the loss of a baby is welcome; organizers have not put a time frame on who may attend.
