[This guest post is by Emily Wilberg. Emily is the author of the blog, Stepping Stones: a path to healing after the loss of a child.]

National Children’s Memorial Day is today, December 13th, 2009.

National Children’s Memorial Day takes place each year on the second Sunday of December. It is observed internationally to honor the 80,000 children who die each year. Families around the world light candles at 7:00 p.m. in their local time zones. As candles burn down in one time zone, they are lighted in the next, creating a 24-hour wave of light that encircles the globe. This remembrance ceremony provides the world with lit candles for an entire 24 hour period in order to honor the children we have lost, the children who lived and died, and who, even in death, continue to live in our hearts.

Join us for this world-wide candlelighting memorial.

Peace -Emily

See Emily Wilberg’s previous article: Grieving the Loss of a Grandchild.

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[We are pleased to feature Emily Wilberg as a guest writer. Emily’s son, Gabriel, was stillborn at 21 weeks gestation in May 2002. Her husband, Nick, is an illustrator and designer, and the two of them have designed several items for grieving parents and grandparents, including scrapbooking quotes suitable for scrapbooking a baby who has died. She has 4 living children in addition to her angel Gabriel. Emily is the author of the blog, Stepping Stones: a path to healing after the loss of a child. Emily says, "I never thought my life would take this turn. Maybe I had this particular baby (Gabriel) and married this particular man (Nick, an illustrator) in order to do some small good in this world.]“

[October has been designated as "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month", with October 15 as "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day".]

When my son Gabriel was stillborn at 21 weeks we were blindsided. I had no idea that in this age of modern medicine and in a country as prosperous as the United States that babies still died. I thought it was something that only happened in third world counties, or maybe back in the pioneer days. And yet, it does happen. When a baby dies it is hard on the entire family — but I can imagine it is uniquely hard for a grandparent. Not only are you, yourself grieving the loss of your grandbaby, but your own child is hurting as well. What do you do? What CAN you do?

Often people do nothing. It used to be that when a baby died (either before or shortly after birth), the mother was not allowed to hold or see her child. She was told to forget and to try again as soon as possible. Things have changed. It has been discovered that it is better for the healing process if the mom is able to see her baby if possible; for the parents to hold and dress and photograph and name their child. If the baby was lost earlier in the pregnancy the parents may not be able to do even this. But the moment a mom finds out she is expecting she starts making plans for, and loving, her child. A loss at any stage is devastating. To be told to forget and move on can be hurtful; no matter how well intentioned the advice is.

There are support groups to help a family facing this trial. But even though this outside help is important, I often hear that families do not feel supported by those closest to them: their own family members. Part of this is due to differences in how our generations have been told to grieve. Part of it is probably due to the fact that family members are grieving themselves. And part of it, maybe, is that it is just too sad. Too sad to think about and too sad to talk about and certainly too sad to make a particular point to remember. And yet, that is often exactly what grieving parents need, people to remember.

You need to do what is best for you while grieving your grandchild. Nobody grieves the same and there is no straight path for healing from this loss. But it is also important to reach out to your child.

How can you help your child who has lost a baby?

Listen. Let us talk. Let us cry. Ask to hear our baby’s story and ask what we named our child. Refer to them by name. Our child’s name is precious to us; we treasure an engraved ornament or even something as simple as writing our baby’s name in a card to let us know you are thinking about us both.

Holidays can be particularly hard. Understand if the parents may not be up to big family celebrations at this time. If you do have a family dinner, a possible tradition to start is to have a toast to remember all missing family members not at the table with you. You can also make a donation to a worthy cause or do a service project in your grandchild’s name.

Technology can help families pull together in times of trial — there are many ways. Send emails often. Take advantage of inexpensive long distance to call frequently — with mobile phones, or iChat, or Internet phones such as Skype and Vonage. Use reminder services for special occasions like the ones available at flowers.com and electronic greeting cards.

The Internet brings our world closer together and makes multiple resources available that may not be available in your immediate community. There are many online resources and support groups for families grieving the loss of a child. There are even specific sites for grieving grandparents. I have listed a few helpful sites below.

Aloha Sand Photos is a recent project I have started with my sister is to take a photo of a child’s name written in the sand and post a photo of it on our blog. I am in Maryland and she is in Hawaii, and the names come from all over the world. One grateful parent recently sent me an email stating, “I love technology. I can simply do this… and photos can come across the world from Hawaii. I am grateful. It has brought me into a very sorrowful yet hopeful club of parents with children who grew wings far too early.”

God sends children to enlarge our hearts, and make us unselfish and full of kindly sympathies and affections. ~Mary Howitt

Thank you to Grandpa Shayne for letting me write this guest post on his blog. I am sorry this topic is needed at all, and yet, I am thankful to be allowed to share my experience it in the hopes it will bring comfort to someone else. I hope today is gentle for you.

Peace -Emily (Gabriel’s mom)

Online Resources

• Aloha Remembered Blog: Have your grandchild’s name written in the sand and a photo posted on their blog.
• Stepping Stones: a path to healing after the loss of a child is a good general blog for finding helpful information.
• Stepping Stones article: Common Signs of Grief
• Grieving Grandparents Bereavement Support Article
• Grandparent Grief pamphlet from the SIDS network
• The Grief of Grandparents article by Compassionate Friends
• Helping a Grandparent Who Is Grieving Article by Alan D. Wolfelt, PH.D
• Healing Hearts: Support for Grieving Grandparents Email Penpals
• Remembering Our Angels: Gifts and ribbons for purchase.

Do you have any thoughts or ideas about helping grandparents and parents heal after the loss of a child? We welcome your comments.

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I love discovering new technologies that I can use as a grandparent. Don’t you? Especially when they are free! For example, I recently discovered this awesome new website where you can create your own online digital scrapbooks for free! It’s called scrapblog.com. As soon as you’ve read my review and seen my example scrapblogs, I’m sure you’ll be eager to surf over to scrapblog.com and play with it!

My first scrapblog

Take a look at this first scrapbook I made there. It’s simple; just two pages. It only took me about 20 minutes to complete it. That shows how intuitive the software is. These are photos of our 8th grandchild, baby Isabella on her birth day.

Click on the play button to it play it with music, or click the forward or back buttons.

Scrapbooking is one of the leading folk arts in the US today. Digital scrapbooking is creating a scrapbook using a computer. 

Scrapblog Builder is scrapblog.com’s web-based application for creating digital scrapbooks. It has an intuitive interface that is very easy to learn. This online tool has plenty of features to help you get started quickly. It comes with a generous set of free themes which include backgrounds, stickers, shapes and frames. You upload your own photos for adding to your scrapblogs. You drag-and-drop each of these elements onto your scrapbook page. You can design simple scrapblogs (such as the one above), or multimedia rich scrapblogs including music and video.

The Scrapblog Builder is an amazing example of what can be created with the latest web development software. The Scrapblog developers use cutting-edge technology to make it easy to use. I spent 17 years developing Macintosh software, so I know what it takes to develop a fine piece of workmanship like Scrapblog. It got my brain spinning and brainstorming again about all the cool new web technologies that grandparents can take advantage of. I love technology!

Does your brain spin too when you discover cool websites? Do you tell yourself, “Wow! I could use this to connect with my grandkids!” 

Two scrapblogs for Princess Adeline

One of our grandaughters turned 3 today, so I made her this digital scrapbook as a present. I titled it Sleeping Beauty Adeline. She won’t wear anything but princess costumes, and mostly only pink! It was inspired by one another digital scrapbooker over at Scrapblog. The background themes I used for each of these scrapblogs are from their set of free templates.

There’s an interesting story behind The World’s Fastest Bedtime Stories. When my children were young, they would enjoy having me make up bedtime stories for them. Sometimes, just to be funny, I would see how fast I could tell a fairy tale and say, “That’s all. Good night!” Then they would want another one, and another…. So, as a keepsake, I printed a dozen sets of books titled The World’s Fastest Bedtime Stories. They are only 1 inch square and 6 pages each. Sleeping Beauty is my fastest; just 19 words!

After I made the first scrapblog for Adeline, I wanted to make a “modern” version with current photos. So I asked my daughter to take some of Addie in her Sleeping Beauty dress. So Addie and her brother, Prince Isaac, acted out the story for me. My daughter emailed me the digital photos, and I uploaded the photos to my scrapblog. Here’s the Modern Sleeping Beauty Adeline.

Click on the ★scrapblog logo on any of these scrapblogs to see a larger version. Then you can viewed it in full screen mode if you like.

There’s no cost to join scrapblog.com. It is completely free. I recommend starting by clicking Quick Tour. After you’ve created one or more, be sure to check out their Get Crafty show for ideas. Once you publish your scrapblog, you can choose if to share them with everyone, or just those people you invite.

They have a nice community of scrapbookers, and a fun way to add other people as your “friends”. When you see a scrapblog you love, be sure to click its Love It! button.

Grandchildren and grandparents

This last scrapblog highlights Grammy Tanda’s loving relationship with our grandchildren. (Oh, there may be a couple of photos of me too.)

Grandchildren are the crowning glory of grandparents. ~Proverbs 17:6

I hope you’ve enjoyed my review of this amazing state-of-the-art technology. Hopefully, this has given you some ideas about how you can use Scrapblog to create fun memories and help you connect with your precious grandchildren. So head on over to scrapblog.com and enjoy making your own scrapblogs!

When you’ve created one, please come on back here and let us know about your experience using scrapblog.com, and feel free to paste a link to your scrapblog in the Website field of your comment.

Enjoy! Shayne

Thanks to Scrapblog artists Lori Barnhurst and Jackie Eckles for the cool themes! 

Copyright 2008, Shayne Packer. All rights reserved. You may review this article and link to it, but please do not embed the scrapblogs in another website. Thanks, Shayne

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Our eighth grandchild was born in April. Baby Isabella is a calm, cute, chubby little girl. She is starting to smile and coo more now. It’s amazing how exciting having a new grandchild is. The eighth one is as awesome as the first. It will be especially fun having Isabella and her parents live close by for awhile! Our other seven grandchildren live in three separate parts of the country. But we stay connected in many ways using technology. For example, I showed my son how to easy it is to publish a new online photo album for Isabella on his family website. We love technology that helps connect us together as an extended family!

Grandchildren are the dots that connect the lines from generation to generation. ~Lois Wyse

In upcoming tutorials, we will be showing how to easy it can be to use cool technology to connect with your grandkids. Stay tuned….

Shayne and Tanda Packer