Saying Goodbye

I am clearly a mum.  Not a lot of point being MummyBarrow if I didn’t have children.   I fell pregnant easily and each pregnancy was relatively straightforward in the grand scheme of things.

I have never suffered the pain of a miscarriage or a still birth.  But I know a number of people who have.  Just last month a friend miscarried, and as a family we have witnessed two babies born asleep in the late stages of pregnancy.

For the families involved the pain is devastating.   And one of the hardest things is the feeling that there is no way of acknowledging the loss.  I am a firm believer in the “process of grief” and part of that process is a funeral.     Yet we don’t have funerals for babies miscarried.

Until now.

Zoe and Andy Clark-Coates know all too well the pain of losing babies which is why they set up Saying Goodbye UK.     In their own words:

We wanted to formally remember the children we have lost and so we created the Saying Goodbye organisation as a legacy in their honour. We hope the services will help thousands of other people who also feel a need to acknowledge their babies, and to recognise their wonderful lives, however short they were. People will have the opportunity to pay tribute to their babies, whist grieving together and formally saying goodbye, which may be something they have never done before. To just stand in a room with hundreds of other people who have all been through a similar experience, knowing everyone is there to support one another, will be such a powerful moment, and we hope it will be life changing to many

Services will be held all over the country from this September.

There will be a short message of hope by senior clergy from the locations, and stories from people who have suffered loss, and how they have come through what can often seem like an impossible situation. Regardless of your faith or beliefs, we hope that these will bring some peace to you

If you, or anybody you know has suffered such a loss and would like to attend, then please check their website for more details.

Disclaimer.  I have not been paid for this post, or even asked by Zoe or Andy to write it, I simply wanted to share their work.