Angels in Heaven Ministries is dedicated to parents who have experienced the loss of a child through miscarriage, stillbirth, or early infant death. This ministry comes out of our own losses and is a way to continue to honor the lives of our children. We would like to share with you a variety of ideas that you can use in the months and years to come to continue to keep your tender memories close to your heart and mind. Allow the life of your baby, no matter how brief, to change yours forever in positive, healthy ways. You can begin by deciding on some ways you and your family would like to honor the life of your child.
Your pain will someday be less intense, but the memory of your child
doesn't ever have to be less significant!
- Give your baby a name. Although your baby's life was brief, giving a name to your child will help you to think of him or her as a unique individual with a purposed life.
- Make or purchase a special box to hold all the treasured things that remind you of your baby. For years to come, you can visit your 'treasure box' at special times when you want to sit and think of your child.
- Make a scrapbook in which you place mementos of your baby. (pregnancy test stick, sonogram pictures, cards and letters, lock of hair, etc.)
- Write letters to your baby. Tell your child all the things you would say if they were still here. It is so healing to just put into words the feelings and emotions you carry for this little life that touched yours in such significant ways.
- Write a message to your baby on a helium-filled balloon. Let it go and watch it float toward Heaven.
- Attend one of the Memory Walks held annually by various loss support groups.
- Purchase a birthstone ring, necklace, or charm that represents the month that you lost your baby. It will serve as a precious reminder of how their life touched yours and how you choose to remember.
- Choose a special ornament (angel, etc.) that will be placed on your Christmas tree each year in honor of your baby. You might even want to begin a family tradition of hanging that special ornament first.
- Purchase a gift for an 'angel' from one of the many Angel Trees at Christmas, and give it 'In Memory of' your child's name. Choose a child who is the age that your child would have been that Christmas. What a blessing it will be for you and the child who receives the gift.