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| Customer Profiles: Children's Memorials
Children's Memorial...SHARE of the Mid-Cities
The Ireland
Report on Succeeding in Women's Health
8 The Ireland Corporation/The Snowmass
Institute, 2001. All Rights Reserved.
A Date with an Angel -
by Beverly Wallach, RN
Beverly Wallach, RN, is Nursery
Unit Manager at Harris Methodist HEB Hospital, Bedford, Texas. This
touching story was brought to our attention at our Snowmass Institute
"Succeeding in Women's Health" networking dinner in Orlando
in May. This story shows how the power of one with a powerful mission
and a community behind her can make a dream come true.
 How
the angel project got started at Harris Methodist - I
went to a workshop entitled "When a Baby Dies"... and that really
brought everything to the forefront for me. Following the workshop, my
husband and I went to dinner where I said to him, "Do you ever think
about our babies that we lost?" And he said, "Yes, every day." We never had communicated that to each other before, which is very
normal for lots of couples. Thirty years ago you didn't discuss it, you
were told to get over it and move on. So here we sat in the middle of
a crowded restaurant both crying. Right then I vowed that I would not
let couples go on for years without talking about the loss they had just
suffered.
We already had a SHARE Support Group at the
hospital that had been set up about 12 years prior to my coming by two
people in our community that had experienced personal losses. However,
the support group had not been utilized much at the hospital so I met
with the original leaders of the group and it started from there. I got
information on books that families could read and made our patients aware
that the monthly meetings were available to them. I attend those meetings
as a monitor for the group. We have from one to 15 couples, depending
on how many losses we've had the prior month. We have some families who
come only around the month before the anniversary of the death of their
child, because it is a very difficult time. That date just looms there,
and when you see it coming, depression kicks back in and you relive the
entire episode. Several families have become great supporters - assisting
with the angel statue, monitoring the SHARE Support Groups, and helping
couples by being good listeners. Couples can come and say anything that
they want....about their sense of loss, about their family and how they
are responding, how they are getting through each day. They can talk about
their guilt and be free to cry which is very important because family
members and friends are inclined to say 'get over it, move on,' especially
if the couple has other children. 'Be thankful you've got what you've
got.' Well, we are thankful but still we want the ones that we don't have.
A Walk to Remember - We began with two
of us getting certified through Resolve Through Sharing of La Crosse,
Wisconsin, as trained grief counselors. At our first meeting in September
1990, we learned that October was Pregnancy and Infant Awareness Month
and groups throughout the country have what they call "A Walk to
Remember" that gives families an opportunity to remember their child.
For many who had early miscarriages, they had no place to remember their
child. So that first year we planted a live oak tree that stays green
year round. We had about 20 people, most of whom were hospital employees
since we only had about 3 weeks to pull it together. Every year since
then, the first Saturday of October, we have A Walk to Remember and nearly
150 families participate. We walk around our campus and have a short service
by our oak tree and for each family that wants their baby's name called,
it is called and they get a small remembrance for that particular year.
We've used miniature angels and butterflies and teddybears and stars and
windmills, anything we can think of to hold onto which is very important.
I never had a memory box before; I have a memory box now for the two babies
that we lost. And I know they were girls in my heart. It took me almost
8 years with the group until I finally named those two babies. When I
named them, made them real, related to them, I stopped having nightmares
that I had had almost nightly. I go down to the angel statue several times
a week to make sure everything is okay and to water the flowers and I
still sit there and talk to my girls, and tell them about the daughter
I do have now because I have a granddaughter.
In October of 1998, we had our Walk to Remember, and I gave my husband
the microphone for the first time. He and I had read the book The Christmas
Box. I had heard the author Richard Paul Evans speak at a couple of
conferences through Share and Resolve through Sharing. My husband took
the microphone and he said, "You know, folks, I really think this
time next year we should have the Christmas Box Angel statue here."
I know my mouth fell open...thinking.... 'what is he talking about? It
would cost thousands of dollars to get her here, a big fundraising project.'
Then families started coming up and saying, 'what can we do to help. This
is a great idea.' And I'm saying to him, "there is no way. Where
did this come from?" And he says, "I don't know. I just got
up there and it just came out." That's what the angel statue does.
It makes you do things and you don't know why you do them.
So my husband Steve's suggestion got us going. Two funeral homes in the
area expressed an interest in helping along with several families. We
began organizing and set up a planning team. I asked the hospital if they
would give us some property by the oak tree so we could place the angel
statue by the pretty creek and they agreed. It is an area that never will
be built on, so she is there permanently.
Memory bricks and other donations - To
raise funds, we decided to sell memory bricks at $100 a piece and families
and area businesses were able to donate money to the project and they
could also purchase a brick. There are 3 lines available for engraving
a message or name, date, etc. We have close to 200 bricks now and with
every loss, of course, there are more. A fund was set up by one family
in honor of their niece for families that can't afford a brick so everyone
can benefit from the angel. People just opened up their hearts.
We have a family that donated money for trees so now we have three purple-leafed
plum trees that are growing and thriving behind the angel statue. We have
benches at the site that were donated by families so people have a place
to sit. And in the wrought iron back of the benches there is an angel!
And the angel site is not just for people who have lost babies or children
at the hospital. Anybody can be remembered at the angel site. We have
remembrance bricks for Robin Bush, the daughter of President George and
Barbara Bush; Tom Landry, late coach of the Dallas Cowboys; and Sue Evans,
the sister of Richard Paul Evans. We have bricks with business names on
them, we have bricks with just family names on them, some that have sayings
that mean something to a particular family, and bricks for parents who
have died. People bought bricks in our honor because of what my husband
and I contributed.
More helping hands to reach our goal - The
first few months our fundraising campaign was going along really well
and then it fell off for about 3-4 months; I was afraid we'd never reach
our goal. We needed about $12,000 for the angel statue and then the base
was several thousand dollars more plus all the expenses for the dedication
so our target was set at $18,000. We went to work making phone calls and
calling on potential donors. One of our funeral homes (Shannon Rose Hill)
donated the base for the statue. My husband along with a friend went down
to a granite quarry in south Texas and picked out the base. An area company
volunteered to deliver the six thousand pound granite block to the site.
The construction company that was building our new women's services building
at the time, poured the concrete where the base would sit. They brought
in their big fork lift tractor and 8 of their crew and lifted the 3 ton
granite piece into place. Other funeral homes donated the plaque for the
base that included the dedication date. A landscaper volunteered to arrange
the plants and flowers around the angel statue.
The project had gained momentum and we were ready to order our angel statue.
We had to pay half the amount for them to even start pouring her. I was
so nervous that I made my husband take a picture of me writing the check
at the bank so everyone would know it was really going to happen. The
angel was delivered on December 4, 1999, and was dedicated only two days
later, on December 6, with 800+ people in attendance. Richard Paul Evans
was not able to be with us because one of things allied with the angel
statue is, that on December 6th of every year, no matter what
day of the week it falls on, no matter what the weather is, you have a
candlelight service at 7 P.M. at the base of the Christmas Box Angel monument.
Richard was at the Salt Lake City Cemetery candlelight healing service,
site of the original angel statue which had been dedicated on December
6, 1994, with his mom being the first person to lay the flowers at the
her base.
For our dedication, we utilized volunteer drivers from a church group
who had loaned us minivans to get people from the parking lot closer to
the area. A small choral group of children from a local church, our junior
high choir, and guest speakers with a local radio celebrity as our master
of ceremonies comprised the very moving, beautiful service.
A Sanctuary - It is a very peaceful
area even though there is a freeway close by, and other things going on
around you, you don't hear anything because you are so in tune with your
feelings while you are at the angel statue. Families leave notes and/or
pictures of their lost child; they bring flowers and balloons. We leave
these items for a period of time and then I have a big box at home which
I put them in. As long as they are not being weathered, they stay near
the angel. We have a little red matchbox car that has been there almost
a year. It goes from the statue to the brick, back up to the statue, back
to the brick. Each time the family visits they move it. We have a little
wooden jack-in-the-box that has been on a baby's brick for more than a
year. We have a rosary left there and stuffed animals. Our angel always
has flowers around her.
After we dedicated our angel, one of our Texas Rangers baseball club pitchers
and his wife lost their baby, only a couple days after her birth. We had
a beautiful memorial service at the angel site. The Texas Rangers baseball
team and their wives attended along with ministers, family members, hospital
staff, and doctors that had taken care of mom and baby. Anyone can use
the site, permission is not needed; I'm sure we are not aware of all the
special services.
The angel's effect on us has been enormous - With
the dedication of the angel statue, women just like me who lost a child
dozens of years ago are able to remember, to have that inner feeling and
closeness to the baby they lost. When we were able to lay a white carnation
in the arms of the angel, it was like laying a child in her arms and she
would watch over them. It was an immensely healing process.
On the night of the dedication service, there was a man who had lost a
son some 30 years ago. His wife told me that he was not a person to ever
talk about the child they'd lost. She said she had to drag him to the
service. And it was the first time he had ever really cried for that child.
The entire experience of the angel and the dedication touched him so deeply.
A little history about the book that started it all...Richard
Paul Evans started writing The Christmas Box book as a gift
for his two daughters for Christmas 1992, although he felt like he was
also writing it for his mother because she lost a child. He made some
copies of the book to give to family and friends and those 20 copies went
all over the Salt Lake City area. In January 1993, the local bookstore
called to order the book and he said it was not published but everyone
was calling and asking for it. He went to several publishers and nobody
would publish it, mostly because of the title The Christmas Box.
It was after the holidays so who wants to read it? They had no idea what
it was really about. So Evans and his wife published 8,000 copies and
were sold out almost instantaneously. He was then able to get a publisher
and so it went. In December of 1994 he placed the angel statue and the
book hit the New York Times best sellers list.
The Christmas Box made publishing history as
a self-published book, hitting #2 on the New York Times bestseller
list, although still in less than l out of 5 bookstores, staying on the
list for 3 weeks until the supplies were depleted. It has also been on
the Wall Street Journal's bestseller list. In November 1995, it
hit #1 on USA Today combined bestseller list and the next month
The Christmas Box television movie airs on CBS starring Maureen
O'Hara and Richard Thomas. The book has been translated into 16 languages.
He's also published several other books, all bestsellers. His children's
books Christmas Candle and The Dance are wonderful and all
proceeds from these books go to the Christmas Box Foundation. He is in
the process now of writing a book about things that have happened since
he wrote The Christmas Box. The stories that families have shared
with him on how his book has effected them, how they came to read the
book, having been drawn to it, not knowing why.
Evans wants to give back to the community. He has constructed two special
places in Utah, The Christmas Box Houses, comprehensive assessment centers
and shelter for abused children where they receive lots of needed health
attention. His goal is to have at least one of these facilities for abused
children in every state. Another goal is to have at least one Christmas
Box Angel in every state. And now Australia is working to bring an angel
to their country.
Evans speaks at workshops and grief seminars and is very supportive of
the National Share group in St. Charles, Missouri. He is obviously a very
giving person. He's a family man with his own children and two adopted
children.
About the angel statue - It is still
awe inspiring to me the way our community pulled together and brought
the angel statue to Texas. It has been a blessing for us, filling a void.
The American Red Cross erected the Christmas Box Angel Statue in survivors'
museum near the Oklahoma City Federal Building. This statue was dedicated
in December of 1997.
The Christmas Box Angel was created and sculpted by father and son. They
modeled the angel according to the description in the book with the face
of the angel that of Richard Paul Evans' second daughter, Allyson Danica.
Currently there are 23 angels with homes across the country, all made
from the same mold. The angel is ½ inch thick bronze from her feet up
and in her wing, written very subtly, is the word "Hope."
For those interested in learning
more about the angel statue, go to http://www.richardpaulevans.com/.
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