Day of Remembrance Ceremony….at A.I. DuPont Hospital

On Sunday, October 24th , DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, DE had a ceremony of Remembrance to honor the children who passed away at that hospital. They send out invitations to the parents of children who passed away in the last 2 years each year. If families who attend find the service to be meaningful for them, then the families can fill out paperwork to be put on DuPont’s mailing list for their child to be included in the ceremony each year that this is done.
Last year DuPont invited us to join them in the ceremony, however, Eric and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to that hospital so soon after Jared passed. (He passed away about a month and a half before the ceremony.) Well, when we got the invitation this year, we were all about honoring our ANGEL BOY. We needed to be a part of it this year, so we went with a few members of our family and a dear nurse and lifelong friend of ours who took care of Jared with all of her heart. I am so glad she came. I was hoping another dear friend and nurse who will always be a part of our hearts could come…she was going to but her aunt passed away and she couldn’t make it. Jared knows her heart attended though.
I have to admit that going in to that hospital brought so much sadness of the last day we came through that door to kiss our ANGEL goodbye and then out those doors never to see our ANGEL again. This time, we made the trip to Dupont and we got to honor the LIFE of a child who brought so much awesome JOY in our lives and he was there with us in SPIRIT and we remembered his smiles each time we came up to DuPont to visit him and he would give to us the BIGGEST SMILES that would light up the room…. because they were smiles of the truest LOVE anyone could ever show physically. I am so GRATEFUL for the faculty and staff of A I DuPont Hospital for all the years of memories that are cherished now more than ever and always will be from the deepest part of my heart…..GOD BLESS ALL OF YOU WHO TOOK CARE OF JARED AND ALL THE OTHER ANGELS WHO ARE BLESSED EACH DAY THAT THEY’RE THERE.


Here are a few pictures:

This was the invitation to the ceremony:

This was the invitation and the memory book that DuPont made up of all the children who had passed away within the last 2 years:

This was Jared's memory page:

This was Jared's picture they hung up along the wall pinned to a clothesline of other pictures of children being honored and the papers are the program of service:

Here is his name circled in red:

This was a gift we received from DuPont as a token of their appreciation for allowing the staff to take care of each of our children (this was given when each family came up to the front when our child's name was called and we each placed a rose in the vase for our little ANGELS):

This was for the siblings (3 years or older)....they had their own little service upstairs with the Child Life Team doing activities with them and Logan made this dragonfly for Jared. When our service was near done, Child Life brought the children down to be a part of the adult service...each child got to hang their dragonfly they made for their loved one on a trellis up front and we got to take them down when the service was over to keep them: