Healing Hearts Grief Support Group
The Healing Hearts Grief Support Group will hold its annual event remembering and honoring deceased children on Tuesday, May 20.
The “Avenue of Pinwheels” will begin at 7 p.m. in the children’s section of Mt. Allen Cemetery, 27th and Vine. The public is invited to attend. Participants are encouraged to use the south entrance near the children’s area.
The event is for parents who have lost children, regardless of the child’s age. This includes children lost through miscarriage or stillbirth. The service is also for others impacted by a child’s death, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends, and teachers.
The ceremony’s purpose is to remember and honor all lost children, not just those buried at Mt. Allen, organizers said.
At the ceremony, pinwheels will be available free of charge to all participants, or people may bring their own. Participants may place a note on their pinwheel with the child’s name and write a personal message. All of the names will be read aloud.
Then the pinwheels will be hammered into the ground by a Healing Hearts volunteer. The pinwheels will be placed in two long rows facing each other, thus creating “The Avenue of Pinwheels.”
The pinwheels will be left up at Mt. Allen until after Memorial Day. Then members of Healing Hearts will pick them up. Organizers will laminate new pinwheels to protect them from the elements. Any damaged pinwheels will be replaced. Then the pinwheels will be safely stored until the following year. Individuals who want to keep their child’s pinwheel are welcome to do so.
The Healing Hearts Grief Support Group began in 2001. In 2006, the group placed a marker in the cemetery’s children’s area and planted a tree. The marker reads: “In memory of our sons and daughters. As parents, we celebrate the lives of our beloved children and hold in our hearts an everlasting love for them.”
More information about the event is available from the support group’s facilitator, Dr. Kate McGonigal, at [email protected].