Speech from the Baby Steps Walk to Remember

Last weekend was the Baby Steps Memorial Walk to Remember. It was a really great way to kick off Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. I gave a speech that is very close to my heart.

I spoke about the death of a child like being lost in the wilderness. For me, my son Zachary has become like Polaris, the North Star, who helps guide me out of the confusing and scary place.

It is always tremendously special to be able to talk about my first son and to hear his name. Within my household, we talk about Zachary all the time, but to be in the company of others who don’t find that weird or uncomfortable is truly a blessing.

It was so nice to have my Mom and Step-father and my husband’s parents join us. I don’t typically ask family and friends to attend these sorts of things every year anymore, as we did in the beginning – but when they all expressed they wanted to come, it meant so much.

As I nervously await the birth of my next rainbow baby in three months, I find I have family on my mind more than ever. We have talked about Zachary with my living kids since they were little and they know my next child – live or die – is the fourth baby and the sixth member of our family. That is because:

Where there is love, life never dies.

That was one of the heartbeats of my speech at the Baby Steps Memorial Walk to Remember.

Here is the speech, if you would like to watch it. I hope you find it encourages you!

So in my speech I mentioned that my story about the wilderness has an alternate ending.

A few days before the Walk, I read my speech to my husband and he looked at me and smiled. “You are remembering the ending of that adventure wrong,” he said. I was confused. Aaron continued: “Us in the bushwhacking group made it out of the forest first!”

I had to think about it for a minute.

“We were first out of the forest and WE shone our car lights for the other group.”

It was starting to come back to me.

“And we spelt some word with rocks for them… I can’t remember what, but we had that much time.”

Yes, my husband was right! AND now he has that in writing…

So the story does end that us, the bushwhacking, off-trail group beat the sure and steady group back to the cars. Really though, to stick with my analogy, that just shows that there are many ways out of grief – and who knows which will be quicker. AND, likely speed is not the point anyway.

Thank you for reading Wanted Chosen Planned.

How are you remembering your child or children this October?

BIG HUGS

Alexis Marie