Fit and Well: St. Luke's Serenity Garden Services for mother who lost a child
TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KMVT/KSVT) — On April 27, St. Luke’s will hold a special memorial service for those who have experienced pregnancy loss. The special memorial will be held at Serenity Garden located at Sunset Memorial Park in Twin Falls.
The service is held to honor the loss of a child whether that’s by miscarriage, stillbirth, or simply having a short life. This has been an ongoing tradition for women and families to participate in and get closure since 2009.
The service also allows families to have their baby’s name engraved on a plaque on one of the monument walls inside the cemetery.
“There aren’t any actual remains at the service itself, we have a memory chest that we place at the head of our table and we center the activity around that,” said Maternal Child Case Manager Tracy Larsen. “In the middle of the service we have what’s called a moment of honor and the families, in their invite, have been allowed to give something special to have placed in the vault with the children at the service.”
At the end of each service, St. Luke’s carefully takes each memory chest and hands them over to the funeral home, so that they can carefully place them in the wall monument at Sunset Memorial. St. Luke’s Chaplain also shared his experience with leading previous memorials at Sunset Cemetery.
“I remember doing a service for a couple that had lost a child and there was an elderly woman there, probably in her 80s and she was related somehow to the family and she was telling how much it was a blessing for her to be at these memorial services, because in her day when she lost a child a pregnancy, it was just ignored, or you were just supposed to deal with it,” said Chaplain Derrick Horne.
The service provided by St. Luke’s also provides translators for those who do not speak English. The Serenity Garden are located inside Sunset Memorial Park at 2296 Kimberly Road. For more information call 208-814-3056.
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