The Days For Moms and Dads

Dear Mr. Hallmark,

I am writing to you from heaven,
and though it must appear
A rather strange idea,
I see everything from here.

I just popped in to visit,
your stores to find a card
A card of love for my mother,
as this day for her is hard.

There must be some mistake I thought,
every card you could imagine
Except I could not find a card,
from a child who lives in heaven.

She is still a mother too,
no matter where I reside
I had to leave, she understands,
but oh the tears she’s cried.

I thought that if I wrote you,
that you would come to know
That though I live in heaven now,
I still love my mother so.

She talks with me, and dreams with me;
we still share laughter too,
Memories our way of speaking now,
would you see what you could do?

My mother carries me in her heart,
her tears she hides from sight.
She writes poems to honor me,
sometimes far into the night.

She plants flowers in my garden,
there my living memory dwells
She writes to other grieving parents,
trying to ease their pain as well.

So you see Mr. Hallmark,
though I no longer live on earth
I must find a way,
to remind her of her wondrous worth

She needs to be honored,
and remembered too
Just as the children of earth will do.

Thank you Mr. Hallmark,
I know you’ll do your best
I have done all I can do;
to you I’ll leave the rest.

Find a way to tell her,
how much she means to me
Until I can do it for myself,
when she joins me in eternity.

~Jody Seilheimer

Shortly after Karlie became a part of our family, Mother's Day had a new layer of sweetness for me, and for that I am so thankful. Then in 2013, shortly after the loss of our first baby, the sweetness of Mother's Day was tempered by the bitter. The rawness of aching over a life lost, the longing to have a little one to hold, and the celebration by so many who already have achieved this was all so very loud. This year, with two more babies in heaven, I admit there was a part of me that wanted to crawl into a hole and wait for the day to be over. I also know there are others who are aching for their mothers and still others whose memories of their mothers conjure painful emotions.

And then this weekend is Father's Day, and I know we will celebrate with Karlie, but my hubby is also the daddy to three little ones in heaven. For me, I was so incredibly touched by the amount of people who reached out to me and told me they were thinking of me on Mother's Day, so let's not forget the dads! If there is someone you are thinking about right now, reach out to that person! Rarely do we ever regret sharing how much someone else means to us. You can send a text or message, or even a card. Our M.E.N.D group was sweet enough to give us a rose for Mother's Day and Father's Day, and there are other ideas on our Hannah's Hope website.

As the poem above mentioned, you may find it hard to say exactly what you want on Father's Day. Since it's 2014 and things are all technologically advanced, you can now create your own cards online. Here is an example of one I made from Treat Greeting Cards. Here's the front:

And here's the inside text (I filtered in on insta):

Okay, so if I was actually going to send it to Mark I would be more personal because he is my husband. Ha. But, you get the point - if you don't see the perfect card in a store you can create one yourself. (-:

Let's use these holidays as ways to shower hurting people with love! I know sometimes it's easy to talk ourselves out of reaching out to others and sometimes we feel like we don't know what to say or don't want to say the wrong thing. A simple "I'm praying for you today and thinking about you on Father's Day" works just fine. Acknowledging parents of babies in heaven as moms and dads can mean so much to them. Shauna Niequist says it well when she says: When we do the hard, intimate work of friendship, we bring a little more of the divine into daily life. I don't know about you guys, but I'm all for that!

So, Happy Father's Day and Happy (belated) Mother's Day to you!

~Kathryn