AgapeCare Cradle Newsletter Dec 2019

Last summer, I was given a pretty cool opportunity to share some of my (and Morgan’s) story. I was asked to write an article that would be the feature story of the December edition of the AgapeCare Cradle Newsletter.

About AgapeCare Cradle

When Morgan died, Andrew and I had no idea what we were doing. There’s so many things to do when a child dies that no parent ever expects to do. Funeral arrangements, urn vs. burial, how to face the holidays, and even just how to start grieving in a healthy way as a couple. We never planned or prepared for these kinds of decisions. It was overwhelming.

AgapeCare Cradle is a non-profit organization in the Wichita area that serves families who have suffered a miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant loss. They provide funeral planning assistance, donate items like urns or caskets, and give compassionate care and advice to the bereaved parents about how to grieve as a couple. Their volunteers even go to the hospital to sit with parents and give emotional support as they are delivering their child who has already passed away. Huge, brave, selfless, grace-filled work…

Essentially, AgapeCare Cradle exists to come along side these broken-hearted families and give them some tools to start navigating this new, unfamiliar reality that is thrust upon them.

AgapeCare Cradle gave us guidance and advice as we started processing Morgan’s death. They also gave us his beautifully engraved urn. They even gave us the amazing idea to use a framed photo as the “guest book” for his funeral. That way, we could hang up a picture of Morgan surrounded by little notes from our friends and family who attended.

We are very thankful for AgapeCare Cradle. They came into our lives seemingly out of nowhere, took us by the hand, and helped us navigate these difficult and unexpected things.

So when AgapeCare Cradle asked me to write an article for their newsletter, I immediately said YES.

This newsletter is sent out biannually to all of AgapeCare Cradle’s financial supporters as well as the families they’ve served in the past. It is meant to be a beacon of hope, a memorial to the sweet babies that were lost, and a means to raise funds so they can continue to serve bereaved parents. And they always share a story from one of the families they supported recently – which is where I came in.

Needless to say, this newsletter is very important. And I started to get nervous about writing this article. I wanted to do a good job for them, because this organization matters so much to us. They played such an important role in Morgan’s story, and I wanted to reflect that in what I wrote.

Because I was nervous, I didn’t know what to write. I didn’t have a clue where to start. How do I possibly say everything I want to say in just a page or two? How could I boil down Morgan’s story into just a few paragraphs? These readers know nothing about me or my story. How could I catch them up, share something I’ve learned in the last year, AND tell them about AgapeCare Cradle? It was just too much to accomplish!

You might be thinking “why was she so worried about writing when she has a blog?” Well, I didn’t have this blog last summer. In fact, I hadn’t even thought about starting a blog. So this seriously threw me for a loop. “Me? Write something for other people to read? No no no no no. I’m not a writer.”

But I kind of was. I was writing occasional (lengthy) Facebook posts about my grief because writing was a way that helped me process. But those posts were only read by my friends – people I knew. And I wasn’t writing with a grand purpose like “fundraising”. I only wrote a facebook post when “the inspiration hit me” and I felt like I had something to say. There was never any pressure to write.

Luckily I had almost 5 months to figure it out. So in true Lauren-fashion, I waited until the last minute for the inspiration to strike me. A couple days before it was due in November, I sat down on my couch… and it hit me: inspiration, a point of view, a voice, a topic. So I wrote. Finally.

And it turned out pretty good, if I do say so myself. It accomplished my goal of immersing the readers in my grief experience and showing how AgapeCare Cradle helped me and Andrew in our time of need.

So below is the December 2019 AgapeCare Cradle Newsletter. (Shared with their permission, of course.)

I put my article in a separate post so this post wouldn’t be insanely long. You can read it by clicking the button below, or by reading the images of the Newsletter below.

Please take a minute to read the names of the babies AgapeCare Cradle served this year. (If you hover your curser over the slideshow, it should pause so you can read.)

There’s also some great tips about “Surviving the Holidays” that we found very helpful in those first few weeks after losing Morgan. Personally, I think they’re great tips any time of year.

Lastly, there’s some examples of how they use the money they fundraise. I found it very helpful to see how far even just a small donation could go to serve these families.

Please Donate

Here is a link to AgapeCare Cradle’s website: www.agapecarecradle.org. You should check it out for more of what they do, and consider making a donation. A little goes a long way. If you feel led to give, it’s really easy to do on their website (they use PayPal), or you can mail a check to their address:

AgapeCare Cradle
P.O. Box 704
Wichita, KS 67201-0704

Andrew and I are donating this month in Morgan’s memory. We plan to do so every year around Christmas since that’s the time of year AgapeCare Cradle came into our lives, took us by the hand, and gave us hope that we could survive this. So… we meant to send it back during Christmas, but you know how hectic that month can be. (Better “late” than never haha.)

IF it’s on your heart to give, maybe donate in the name of a baby you know who has passed. Maybe you’ve lost a baby yourself. Maybe a friend or relative has. This would be a sweet way to pay it forward, honor that child’s memory, and help a family who is experiencing a similar loss. If you don’t know anyone specifically, feel free to donate in Morgan’s name.

Or my FAVORITE suggestion… pick one of the names shown on the AgapeCare Cradle Newsletter and donate in that baby’s name!

After Morgan’s funeral we asked friends and family to donate to AgapeCare Cradle in honor of Morgan, instead of sending us flowers. (You can read more about that in this Facebook Memory post (check out the last photo).) Later on, AgapeCare Cradle gave me and Andrew a list of the people’s names who donated in honor of Morgan. It was amazing and humbling to see all the names.

So I bet it would be awesome for those other families to see that a stranger donated in their child’s name. It shows them that even though their child is gone, their baby is still is making an impact on the world in a beautiful way. That would be SUCH a cool gift, you seriously have no idea! Givin’ me the chills!

Thanks for reading all about AgapeCare Cradle. They truly mean so much to me and Andrew. Their work is difficult and emotionally draining – it’s not easy to walk deep in the trenches of grief with a stranger – but they do it with such compassion and grace.