The Good She Brought Into My Life

By: Ashley Opliger It’s been six years since my daughter, Bridget Faith, went to Heaven at 24 weeks and 5 days into my first pregnancy in 2014. Some days it feels like just yesterday that I held her so carefully in my hands in the cradle my mom had knit for her, soaking in each…

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Thanksgiving Onesies

By: Ann-Marie Ferry Brilliant sunbeams awaken my eyes. It is a beautiful May day and I have a mission. The night before I scoured the local papers and the internet for garage sale’s advertising baby cloths. Coffee and cash in hand I charge (waddle) out the front door and into my petite Ford Focus.  My…

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Thankful For The Unexpected

By: Kayla Leibner The holidays are a time that I find myself especially compelled to reflect on the things for which I am most thankful.  Before our life-changing losses, these reflections usually included things like family, friends, and faith. While I am still grateful for these things (and so much more) each day, it is…

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Kindred Strangers

By: Ann-Marie Ferry I never saw it coming. Tear soaked face. Thrown together carry-on. Royal blue, malodorous, Grey’s Anatomy scrubs. I must have been a sight that day. Sitting among strangers, waiting for the plane, I prayed, “Lord, I need an everyday miracle. Please sit me next to another Christian I can pray with during…

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Your Love Is Legendary

By: Ann-Marie Ferry Mother Bear first noticed the faint smell of smoke that morning as she wandered about her home of skyward reaching trees, brambles, berries, and trickling streams. She paid it no heed. Her two cubs wrestled about in the underbrush, ear gnawing, rollie pollies that would jump to a battling bear stance at…

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Finding Beauty in Grief

By: Robyn Busekrus The season of Fall has quickly transformed the trees.  The hues of red, orange and yellow are bountiful in color.  Seasons of change are difficult for those of us who have experienced pregnancy loss.  There is beauty in the seasons changing, yet an ache as we wish our children were here. This…

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The Deep Roots of Legacy

By: Ann-Marie Ferry “Tough it out.” “Don’t cry.” Don’t be a girl.” We have been told for years that to show pain, or to speak of it, is weakness. We are the children of stoicism. The American roots run deep into this ancient philosophy. At the heart we know something is wrong with it but…

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Sailing

By: Ann-Marie Ferry Twenty-five feet of crystal-clear water rolled between the pier where I stood and the smooth, colorful boulders on the lake floor. I was enchanted by this simmering window into aquatic life, mesmerized, in my own world. “Ann-Marie, the line is moving,” a voice called out. My parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents,…

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