bluetoad/publication/?i=172714&p=148 Here is the text only version: Community Service Gail Bennison Connecting Threads Old wedding dresses find new life in the Angel Gowns project. Forty wedding gowns — from elaborately beaded numbers to lacy confections — fill the living room. They’ve already seen their big day, celebrations full of love and hope. Now, cut apart and stitched anew, they will find another life as burial garments for tiny babies born too soon. Lisa Grubbs has been collecting the donated gowns and storing them in her Fort Worth home since April, when the Angel Gowns project got its wings, “quite by accident, honestly,” Lisa says. She saw on Facebook how a woman in another state was doing something similar in her community and asked if she could send her wedding gowns to be made into burial clothes. “I wanted her to send the gowns back so we could donate them to our hospitals. She wasn’t able to do it, but she sent me all the instructions for making them. Since we got the word out, women from all over the country have sent wedding gowns, and our house looks like a bridal salon. We’re still getting gowns. The tough part is finding seamstresses,” says Lisa. “You look at the angel gowns and they are so beautiful, and then you remember what they’re for.” The Angel Gowns project is just one facet of the bereavement service provided by Fort Worth-based NICU Helping Hands, a nonprofit organization that Lisa and husband Randy Grubbs, a Fort Worth neonatologist, founded in 2010. NICU Helping Hands provides a wide range of support programs and resources to parents of premature infants in the community, not only during the babies’ stay in the neonatal intensive care unit of local hospitals, but during and after their transition home. In many cases, they help with funeral expenses. In 2011, the organization launched Project NICU, a family support program available to area hospitals. From weekly meetups for parents and siblings to one -on- one support through a mentoring program to memory archiving, Project NICU focuses solely on the educational and emotional needs of the families of premature infants. The organization has never turned anyone away, Lisa says. “The connection that all these families have — whether it be with a physician, a therapist in the NICU, a support person from NICU Helping Hands, nurses, chaplains and patient consultants — is the baby,” she says. “So when we look at things that we’re doing, it reminds us of how a thread woven into the baby’s garment connects everything. We hope for the best outcome, and sometimes we have to prepare for the worst outcome, but we want those connections to be positive regardless of what happens.” Arlington mom Kathryn Nguyen contributed her wedding gown because she wanted to help other grieving parents have a beautiful memory of their little one, she says. “Often, all the parents remember are the final moments,” she says. Kathryn understands. Three years ago, she and husband Nam lost premature twin boys, Isaac and Samuel. Seven months ago, twin daughters Charlotte and Esther arrived six weeks early. Charlotte had a 35-day NICU stay; Esther went home 33 days later. “The girls are healthy, happy and thriving,” says Kathryn. “My fondest desire is that somehow the donation of the angel gown whispers that somewhere there is hope beyond the grief and that those who are grieving know there are others who understand what they’re going through.” Amy Vickers has long been involved with babies. The former NICU nurse is executive director of the Mothers’ Milk Bank of North Texas and a volunteer seamstress. “This is a way I can give back and do something I really love.” “When I was a NICU nurse, many times our tiny patients would pass away, and we would have nothing special to dress them in. No matter how tiny, they deserve a special garment that somebody really put a lot of love in, made just for them. I think hand making them out of wedding dresses adds a layer of specialness to it. I just love that connection.” Handy with a thread and needle, Amy doesn’t use a pattern. She adds her own special touches with delicate smocking and embellishments of embroidered crosses, teddy bears and sailboats. For the tiniest babies, Vickers reworks the sleeves of the wedding gowns to make delicate outfits. “I wanted something for the baby boys and also for the family to have different gowns to choose from,” she said. Strips of the wedding gowns are being sent back to the donors to be used in their children’s bridal bouquets or just as a memento, Lisa says. “We are in the process of writing a little card that goes in each angel gown box that tells the parents how the gowns came from a wedding dress to wrap their babies in love.” The first person Lisa called to make angel gowns was her mother, Joy Rodriguez, who lives in Fayetteville, Tenn. She has completed 18 so far. “I initially had some very mixed emotions about making these little gowns,” Joy says. “My daughter wanted me to take her wedding gown from the packaging it has been in since her wedding and cut it up. … Needless to say, I was rather taken aback at cutting her beautiful gown up into tiny little gowns. The next thing I know she has shipped me three more and forwarded me the patterns.” It took her six hours to cut and make the first one, as she was overcome with emotion. “I thought of all the love and hope that a wedding gown represented to the bride, and the little burial gown was perhaps a love and a hope that had been dashed in the death of a precious little baby,” she says. “One of my granddaughters referred to this little gown ministry as bittersweet, and perhaps that word best describes the beauty, yet the huge loss, associated with the wearing of each one. As I cut and I sew, my prayer is that this one would never be needed, but if it must be worn, then my prayer is that the mom and dad can see their little one that last time on this earth clothed in beauty. I hope in some way they can feel the love that each stitch represents and that their hope can be renewed and their hearts comforted.” The response to requests for dresses has been overwhelmingly positive, Randy says. “Turning donated wedding gowns into angel gowns and providing them for bereaved parents is a very unique service, even among other NICU parent support programs around the country,” he says. And the sad reality is that the mortality rate for premature babies is very high, according to Lisa. “There’s a great need for support and education for these families. It’s so important for their mental and emotional health. The grief process is something every family in the NICU goes through, whether they lose a child or their child survives with difficulties,” she says. “I think that us stepping in and providing something beautiful in the face of tragedy can be a moment that says somebody validated their grief. It says that their child existed.”
Posted on: Sat, 31 Aug 2013 18:45:50 +0000
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