For those who have lost a baby or pregnancy, our month to remember the dreams we had  is October. We also share this month with those who have been touched by Breast Cancer. Angelversary Pregnancy Loss Ribbon Garden Flags create awareness of  those suffering “silent grief”.

An angelversary is the death date of a much wanted baby. Miscarriage, molar pregnancies, cord accidents, incompetent cervix , stillbirths, and SIDS are tragic ways our children become angels.

Bereaved families of pregnancy and infant loss may not have a public angelversary get together, but they do acknowledge the day their world changed forever.

The angelversary garden flags can also be hung like a banner by inserting a hollow PVC pipe or dowel. If you know the gender of your baby, tie a bow of the appropriate color and adorn with remembrance keepsakes. If placed outdoors, use rust proof keepsakes.

If you do not know the gender of your angel, green or yellow ribbon can be used.

Your garden flags can also be placed into your memory gardens.

 Angelversary Pregnancy Loss Ribbon Garden Flags Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. A $20.00 check can be sent to:

Just a Cloud Away, Inc. Po Box 327, Julian, NC 27283,

The costs include shipping, handling and taxes. If you live out of the Continental United States, an additional fee may apply. If this is a sympathy gift, please include the mailing address of bereaved family.

PVC pipe and garden stands can be purchased at your local hardware or garden shops for under 12 dollars.

 Happy 6th Angelversary Baby Tanner-September 28, 2003

Peace Love and Hugs from Above

Diana 

www.justacloudaway.com

When my baby Tanner passed September 28, 2003, sympathy flowers were delivered almost every day for a month. Scruggs Florist in Greensboro, North Carolina delivered the most because they were located less than a mile away from our house. 5 1/2 years later I am helping the florist create an appropriate sympathy basket for bereaved parents of baby and pregnancy loss.

The grief from pregnancy and infant loss is an overwheming sadness where parents often suffer in silence. If this type of loss hasn’t happen to you, it is difficult to understand. Acknowledgment of a much wanted baby is one step towards supporting bereaved parents.

Scruggs Florist now carries a sympathy basket for the death of a baby and for angelversaries. The sympathy gift includes:

1 Indoor Plant
1 Azalea Plant
1 Basket
1 Just a Cloud Away Remembrance Kit
1 Plant Care Sheet
1 Zodiac Sheet
1 Memory Garden Tip Sheet
1 Scrapbook Tip Sheet
1 Pamphlet-Ways to Comfort Bereaved Parents
1 Pamphlet-What not to say to Bereaved Parents

1 out of 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage and 26,000 stillbirths occur every year in the United States. If you know of a bereaved couple who has suffered the loss of their angel, you may want to think about sending a sympathy gift for the angelversary or death date. There are not too many loving parents that ignore this special and tragic date.

There are many supportive gifts included in the Scruggs Florist sympathy basket for grieving parents. There are also ideas for those supporting and comforting them.

Remembering all baby angels….

Peace Love and Hugs from Above

Diana www.justacloudaway.com

My Angel’s Memory Garden starts to bloom just in time to wrap up the winter blues. The air is beginning to warm with a gentle fragrance of flowers and daylight shines a couple more hours.

The white daffodils, tulips, creeping phlox, helleborus or lenten rose, and candytuft are gracing us with whites, creams and colors of pale yellow. It is an amazing display, also in time for Easter.

When the children visit during the holiday, I always make sure there are some eggs hidden in Tanner’s memory garden. Having Tanner included in the holiday festivities are very important to me, even if it’s simply a stroll through his special place.

The weather is perfect for reflecting on my little angel in his garden.

The surrounding wildlife will now enter into Tanner’s memory garden by nesting, slithering through under the cool stones or the cows listening to the beautiful chimes blowing in the breeze.

I love spring and it is a wonderful time to start thinking about your angel and how to memorialize your child by creating a memory garden.
A perfect tribute for your baby’s angelversary.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above
Diana www.justacloudaway.com

My sister-in-law has always been very supportive after the death of my stillborn son Tanner. I remember her sitting on my porch 2 days after his passing and saying, “Don’t they know what happened, why is he mowing the lawn?”.

The world should have stopped after Tanner died and as well as the death of every other wanted baby. Don’t the people around us know the magnitute of our grief? No, and most of us don’t want you too. What is important to us is remembering what should have been. Our angels now have angelversaries to memorialize the moment we found out they left us. Every bereaved parent has a date.

My sister-in-law created her own memorial to honor our sweet angel baby and her nephew. 5 years later and it still remains on their living room wall.

Those are Tanner’s actual footprints and I have made copies for all family members for a keepsake. Some are placed in a scrapbook, some framed on a wall and others tucked away in bibles or journals.

Our little angels aren’t here physically, but they are always present mentally. It is true I think of him everyday and everyday I do not cry but the only 12 pictures of him in existence, vividly adorn my memory.

Some family members hold a special place in my heart because of their warmth, love, support and just loving my little angel by honoring him with memorial keepsakes.

Who are the special people in your life and who has created a keepsake memorial honoring your little angel?

Peace Love and Hugs from Above

Diana
www.justacloudaway.com

The night after my baby was stillborn was the first time I felt Jesus hug me. It is now 5 years later and as I relive the tragic day in my mind, I know now that Jesus hugged me with all of His love.

As a parent of an angel, I do not want to forget one detail of Tanner’s existence or death. He is a very special little boy who has brought many good things into my life BECAUSE of his passing. Looking back at the night after he was born dead, I know that Jesus was responsible for me to have the most wonderful and peaceful sleep in over 8 months.

Tanner was stillborn in the late afternoon on Sunday and I was then placed into a room on another floor, away from all of the happy new mothers. It was a ghost town with minimal staff and patients.

I told everyone, including my husband to go home. I wanted to be alone, rest and think about what was really happening. I had no wires, no tubes or anything hooked up to me, so there was no reason I would have to be disturbed by nurses in the middle of the night. My room was quiet and my sleep was heavenly and silent.

The lyrics to “Silent Night”

Silent night, holy night
All is calm, all is bright
Round yon Virgin Mother and Child
Holy Infant so tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace
Sleep in heavenly peace

This is how I truly felt. All was calm in my heart and all was bright for my sweet child entering into his home with Jesus. The warmth and comfort could have only come from Jesus, my Savior.

I miss you baby Tanner and Mommy loves you always

Peace Love and Hugs from Above
Diana

surveys – Take Our Poll
surveys – Take Our Poll

Haven of Hope and Healing, Inc. held their Annual Memory Tree Ceremony in Historic Providence Christian Church, December 2, at 7pm. This tiny but incredibly quaint church is the perfect setting  honoring children who never had the chance or for a brief moment, looked into the eyes of their parents.

Darrell K. Moser and Christie Moser founded Haven of Hope and Healing and are dedicated to helping other bereaved families of pregnancy and infant loss. This is their 6th Annual Memory Tree Ceremony where families have an opportunity to honor angels by hanging an ornament while stating their child’s name and any other words reflecting undying love.

Haven of Hope and Healing was the support group my husband and I seeked out to help us after the loss of our stillborn son, Tanner Lee Williams.

I would encourage other bereaved families to participate in yearly events to honor their children and to share ways of coping  with other parents of similar losses. No one understands like a bereaved parent of pregnancy and infant loss.

This years Christmas ornaments were beautifully decorated and hand painted by Pat Scheible.

After the ornaments were hung by the families, the tree was then lit and an appropriate song played as we reflected on our children and the scripture read at the beginning of the program by Reverend Darryl Pebbles and Dr Steve Tucker.

Our angels matter and our always loved. Merry Christmas my sweet Tanner and I love you always.

Mommy

October 11th, Pregnancy and Infant Loss Memory Walks took place across the nation, recognizing the babies who left this earth too soon. Bereaved families came together to pay tribute by walking, lighting candles, or releasing balloons or butterflies. October 15th  being the actual day.

Heartstrings located in the Piedmont Triad Area of North Carolina had their memory walk October 11th, Saturday morning. I attended and brought all of the many angel crafts I created in memory of my stillborn angel, Tanner. Next to me was a table full of books by a local writer and bereaved parent of stillbirth, Anna Marie Smith. She would also be the keynote speaker.

She would share a similar story with me about her first born son, like my little Tanner Nanner. Her baby Mac was stillborn 4 years prior to my son. I decided to purchase her book “Sleeping Angel”. I have a library filled with pregnancy loss books, but none by someone I have met in the flesh.

While I was taking pictures of the event, my mother sat and read the entire book. I asked her how it was. She said, “It sounds like everything you went through.”

There were similarities and there were differences because no 2 people are exactly the same. A few of those differences were looking pregnant after our stillbirths and how other people would notice. For me, I wanted so much to look pregnant as long as possible. I wanted people to ask me if I was pregnant or when I was expecting so I could talk about my angel. Another difference was how I dealt with Tanner’s death the month afterward. I would start drinking wine early in the morning, smoke 2 packs of cigarettes, wander through my garden and cry all day long. By the time my husband would arrive home, I would be passed out for the the evening until the next morning. Another huge difference was that unlike Anna, I knew how my baby died, the umbilical cord. She would never know. 

I will finish the book and continue to note the differences and similarities of our journey of grief.

Peace Love and Hugs from Above   www.justacloudaway.com

Diana

5 years ago was the worst day of my life when Tanner was pronounced dead at the hospital. I would have never thought I’d be acknowledging my sweet son’s 5th birthday in his memory garden.

When you loose a baby, these times are not easy to endure. Tanner would be going to kindergarden and making new friends, playing t-ball, and just being a beautiful 5 year old little boy. They are the same milestones parents of living children think about.

My grief was not overwhelming this year as previous years. Maybe it has something to do with the medication I am on from being diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Whatever the case, I still couldn’t bring myself to attend church yesterday. That is a place where my grief creeps up on me and I am trapped within crowds of people with my eyes at full capacity with tears. We spent a quiet day at home.

It has been a tradition to fly a brightly colored balloon in Tanner’s Memory garden on his angelversary. I always wished that the store clerk would ask me whose birthday are you celebrating with this beautiful balloon. It hasn’t occured yet.

We also hung a beautiful blue angel ornament. The angel ornament complimented the beautiful blue sky and white fluffy clouds.

Since my husband and Tanner share birthday’s, my parents put a little extra cash in his envelope to purchase something for Tanner’s Memory Garden. My husband made a good choice with the ornament of an angel.

Every year my dear Uncle sends a birthday card addressed to both Tanner and my husband. Something as small as writing my stillborn son’s name is a great feeling of warmth.

Last evening my in-laws brought a metal flower to place in his garden.

Tanner is not physically here but his presence certainly is. Tanner’s Memory Garden was included in a SANDS newsletter in Australia………………on his 5th birthday. Thank you Pauline.

Happy Angelversary Honey

Mommy Loves You Always