"Love is a fabric that never fades, no matter how often it is washed in the waters of adversity and grief". -- Anon.

Remember how I laughed,
Remember how I loved.
use me as the reason you embrace life,
Not the reason you don't. 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Meetings:

April 12, 2010

May 10, 2010

June 14, 2010

OUR NEXT MEETING

Monday, March  8, 2010 at 7:00 PM,
We will meet at East Jefferson Hospital, in the Esplanade 2 Room.
New Members Come at 6:45 PM.

    The meeting begins with a short introduction followed by the lighting of our candle and then reading the Credo. This is followed by reading the names of our children with birthdays this month. Each member is invited to introduce themselves and their forever child. We divide into our smaller sharing groups. 

  The closing of our meeting begins by joining hands and forming a circle, remembering our child and saying their name.

   After the closing, please feel free to visit our resource table and lending library.

To Our New Members

Coming to your first meeting is the one of the hardest thing to do. But, having lost so much, you have nothing to lose and much to gain. Please keep an open mind, we ask that you try two to three meetings before deciding if TCF will work for you or not.

To Our Old Members

We need your wisdom, support and hope. You are the glue that unites our group. When new parents come to the their first meeting it is important to see those further done the path that are surviving, it gives all of us some hope for the future. Remember what it was like to walk through those doors, there was someone there to greet you and tell you
"you are not alone."

BUTTERFLY RELEASE

We will be holding our 12th Annual Butterfly Release
April 25, 2010.

Please see our event page for more information.  

When I saw her load of grief, it looked to me to be merely a light load of butterfly wings, as compared to my full load of heavy bricks. Then I saw another man, and he seemed to be carrying a small load of lead. But as I watched her step on the scales bearing her load of butterfly wings, the scales read "one ton." When he stepped on the scales with his load of lead, the scales also read "one ton." I knew my grief-load of bricks would weigh more, but those scales read for me, "one ton." Our loads of butterfly wings, lead and bricks weighed exactly the same to the one carrying that particular load of grief. We bereaved parents often feel resentment when a non-bereaved person speaks about our child's death. HOW can THAT PERSON know or even dream of how I feel or what I am going through? These feelings may be justified.

But when we begin to feel resentment toward another bereaved parent—"That child's death was easy compared to my child's death," "I have suffered more than she/he ever did"—we should remember that each of our grief-loads weighs two thousand pounds to the one under it. Compared to Rose Kennedy, who had one child in a mental institution, and lost one daughter and three sons in violent deaths, my grief-load begins to look as if it were made of gossamer soap bubbles, but when I again step on that scale, it still reads, "one ton.
Our grief-loads may appear to weigh less because we who are under them have grown stronger through time and grief process maturation. The load actually weighs no less; it is we who have grown stronger and can carry it more easily. Sometimes we can even completely ignore the weight that is still there. Always be careful in judging another's grief-load. Remember the lead, butterfly wings and those bricks, and how they all weigh the same to the one under that load of grief.

Tom Crouthamel ~ TCF, Sarasota, FL

"What the caterpillar perceives as the end, to the butterfly is just the beginning."

A butterfly lights beside us like a sunbeam
And for a brief moment its glory
and beauty belong to our world
But then it flies again
And though we wish it could have stayed...
We feel lucky to have seen it.
Author Unknown