Capture Your Grief: Day 5, Memorial

Day 5 for the Capture Your Grief Project is a picture of anything you have done in memory of your baby.  While it is similar to what I will be using on Day 17, it is what I consider to be Taylor's memorial.  This is the memorial we created for her when we celebrated her birthday on September 24.  It includes her Prayer Flag, the angel butterfly I found (because butterflies can be a symbol of lost babies and a purple butterfly is the symbol for TS), her ultrasound from when we heard her heartbeat, Peanut (her puppy dog that my brother and sister-in-law gave me for Mother's Day, wearing the outfit, with Rangers t-shirt, they gave J for Father's Day), Mr. Raccoon, Pajama Baby (Mr. Raccoon and Pajama Baby are from my uncle for Taylor), a lily from the bouquet our wonderful friends sent us in honor of her birthday, and candlelight to let her know she shines on inside of us.  I will share more about her birthday celebration on the 17th, but I think this was a beautiful way for us to honor her.  I am not ashamed to admit that I have slept with one of the three stuffed animals every night since we lost her and I can't go to sleep until one of them in tucked under my arm.  It makes me feel close to her each night.  Hard to believe our baby girl would be in our home by now filling it with all kinds of wonderful baby sounds and smells if things had been different.

~T.

Prayer Flag

I know it is has been a good long while since I have had any blog posts. For that I am truly sorry, I can only say that I have been in a dark place for much of the summer. A week ago today was my sweet baby girl's due date and I will need a whole blog post to explain the beauty of that day for me and my husband. I feel we were able to honor her and allow her to see the joy and love we hold for her in our hearts. I do promise to come back to it in a future post. A few weeks ago J and I worked on creating a prayer flag for our Taylor to hang for October 15 at the Baby Remembrance ceremony that will be held on Christian's Beach in Australia.  Carly Marie's website has been such a blessing to me over the past few months and I was excited when she posted her upcoming project she wanted to do with Prayer Flags from all over the world.  J and I were thankful to have such a beautiful way to honor our daughter.

We used a fabric marker to write a message on the back to our daughter in Heaven.  I won't get the opportunity to sew blankets, play mats, curtains or dresses for my little girl, but she does have a prayer flag full of love.  It was also my first completed project with my sewing machine; I just received help with the embroidery of her name with my Memaw's fancy machine :)  It gives me a great amount of joy that the first thing I ever really sewed was for my baby girl.  I can't wait to see pictures of her flag on the beach.  I wanted to spend so much time in the water with her, but at least I know in a way we are experiencing the beauty of the ocean together now.

~T.