March 29, 2007 Building Memorial Gardens to Honor Our Children: Jo Ann Glim

HEALING THE GRIEVING HEART
Building Memorial Gardens to Honor our Children
Hosts:  Dr. Gloria Horsley and Dr. Heidi Horsley
With guest:  Jo Ann Glim
March 29, 2007
G: Hello.  I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley with my co-host
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.
G: Each week we welcome you to Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and conversation with those who’ve suffered the loss of a loved one and for health care professionals who work in this most difficult field.  As always the message is others have been there before you and made it.  So can you.  You do not walk alone.  If you’re listening to our Thursday live Internet show, please join Heidi and me and our guest on the show by calling our toll free number 1-866-472-5792 with questions or comments regarding the losses in your life.  These shows are archived on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com, as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org websites.  All shows can be downloaded through Itunes and transcripts can be accessed on www.thegriefblog.com.  Well, Heidi, good morning.
H: Good morning, mom.
G: Or good afternoon your time in New York, right? 
H: Right.
G: So I want to talk a little bit before we get started about what’s new on www.thegriefblog.com.  We’ve had some really interesting response.  We had Ruth Ann wrote in to us and asked us.  She had a child die, wasn’t a crib death exactly, and she was looking for some resources.  And didn’t we have a great response from Susan Hawkes?
H: Wonderful, and she has so many resources and has so much information on losing a baby. 
G: Yes, so we hope that if you’ve got these issues that you’ll go onto www.thegriefblog.com and read Ruth Ann’s question about getting some help and then read Susan Hawkes’ response and feel free to log in there, and this is exactly what we want to see on the blog, isn’t it, Heidi?
H: Yes, and we can also hook you up and connect you with some of our guests that are experts in the field of loss that you’ve had. 
G: Exactly, we’ll match you up with some of the experts that we’ve had so if you’ve got issues, email Heidi or me through the blog and we’ll set you up with somebody.  We’ve also had some good news about one of our friends from the show, Valerie Sobel, who was on with Andre River of Life.  Can you talk about that, Heidi?
H: Well, I was in the airport yesterday, because I’m actually in New Orleans right now, and I was in the airport and I grabbed a People magazine and on page 131, there is a wonderful article on Valerie Sobel and it’s called, “A Bereaved Mother’s Gift.”  It has a photo of her.  And it talks all about how she set up the Andre Sobel River of Life Foundation to help those families that had children that were gravely ill or dying to help them financially and we’ve had her on the show.  It was just last month, and she’s a wonderful guest, and if you want to learn more about her, please pick up a People magazine and then go onto our archive shows with her and listen to that.
G: Absolutely, and she’s looking for volunteers for her program, too, if you remember that, Heidi.
H: That’s right.  I forgot about that.
G: It would be a great thing to do.  Well, the next thing we have is Deni.  I think she might be on.  I’m not sure, but if she’s not, Heidi, can you talk about Deni?
D: Hi.
H: Deni?
G: Oh, Deni’s on.  Oh, good.  We’re glad that we got in touch with you.  We tried to make it last week and it didn’t quite work out but we’re so glad you’re on this week, Deni.  Heidi’s told me a lot about what you’re doing.
D: Thank you so much.
G: Do you want to talk about it a little bit or Heidi do you want to introduce her?
H: I am so glad that Deni we’ve hooked up and you’re here.  Deni Taveras is going to talk today about a book she’s writing which I think is very important.  It’s to build awareness about the topic of losing a family member to suicide, and Deni can you tell us more about what you’re doing and how to get in touch with you?
D: Okay, great.  Thank you so much for having me on.  I’m actually not writing.  I’m compiling letters.  Basically, I’m a survivor.  I lost my mom to suicide thirty years ago and basically what I’m doing is that I was really moved to write a letter to her and it really impacted me incredibly and I thought that, wow, if it can impact me this strongly, I know that people will also feel the same, and I just want to be able to encourage people to write letters to the individuals in their life that they’ve lost to suicide and submit those letters to this project which is called The Afterw@rd and that’s theafterward@gmail.com, and also you can click on to our blog, www.theafterward.blogspot.com and actually the information should be on the www.thegriefblog.com on your website.
G: Right.  People will be able to pick it up off there.
D: Awesome.
G: Well, what a great idea.  I love the idea of writing letters.  We’ve had people on before that say it’s so helpful to write and like this idea.
D: But I just want to be able to say that what’s special about this particular project compared to others is that really what I focus on on these letters is the impact after that person’s passed away so this is stories about what’s happened to you in your life.  How things have happened after that person has passed away given let’s say five, ten, fifteen, twenty years out.  So you really want to be able to tell a story about how the impact of that suicide has affected your life in that family.
G; That’s great.  Now are you a psychologist?  Is that right?
D: No, not at all.  I just did this as a survivor.  I work in disaster relief, so it’s completely different.
G: Oh, in disaster relief.  I knew you did something out there helping the world.  Well, good for you.  Good luck on your project and all of you out there, if you’ve had a suicide or know somebody that has, it sounds like a really wonderful idea, doesn’t it, Heidi?
H: It does, and Deni, I like the idea that you’ve included a sample letter also so that people can get an idea and also if people want to submit them anonymously, right, they can change the name?
D: Exactly, because I really want to emphasize that this is really a safe space.  I’ve received a really wide array of letters.  I just want to create that there is a safe space here for people to discuss maybe if they were happy or sad or embarrassed or guilty, and it’s all without judgment so feel comfortable just expressing what’s happened and making visible what the real impacts are.
G: That’s great.  Thanks so much for being on the show and good luck with your project.
D: Thank you so much for having me on.
H: We’re glad you called in.  Take care, Deni.
D: You take care, too.  All right.  Thank you.  Bye bye.
G: Gosh, Heidi, isn’t it amazing what creative and wonderful things people are doing out there?
H: Absolutely and I love how Deni is building awareness to such an important subject and she said stopping the cycle of suicide in families.
G: Yeah, that’s great.  Well, we’re going to talk today about somebody whose done some wonderful and creative things.  Do you want to introduce our guest?
H: Sure, I’d love to.  Our guest today is Jo Ann Glim, and our topic is Building Memorial Gardens to Honor our Children.  Jo Ann is a true survivor.  She lost her father at age nineteen and her mother at age fourteen.  However, she tells us, that it wasn’t until she retired, endured the death of a grandchild, and experienced a debilitating stroke that her true vocation became clear.  Jo Ann founded and serves as President of the Children’s Memorial and Gardens, a non-profit organization whose vision is to connect gardens dedicated to the memory of our children through a national registry and to raise awareness of the effects and complexities of child-loss grief.  Welcome to the show, Jo Ann.
J: Thank you very much.
G: Jo Ann it’s so great to have you on.  I love what you’re doing.
J: Thank you.
G: because – well, tell us about it.  Gardens are so important.  How long ago did you lose your grandchild?
J: Melissa passed away in 1995.
G: And when did you get the idea for the garden?  Did that impact?  Is that how it happened?
J: The ideas for the gardens started when Melissa had passed away and we were standing at her gravesite and I made a vow that the voices of the children would never be silenced.  As soon as I did that, every fiber in my body, I saw a vision of tear drops that were gently touching and there was this melodic tone and I thought, I’m supposed to do something about this, and the idea of the gardens came to me instantly.  And I started to work on it but I’m basically a very shy person by nature and all of a sudden after I’d made that vow and found that I was expected to follow up on it, I decided that maybe I really wasn’t the right person to follow through on this and so I spent three years in a very long conversation about well, I don’t have the talents and I really can’t, and I’d send letters out, and if I received a letter back, it was always a rejection, and so I finally just put the whole project to the side and said I don’t have what it takes.  I gave it my best shot.  And in the meantime, my husband retired.  We moved down to Florida, and six months later, I suffered a stroke, but before I did, we had gone to our church for a mission and while we were there, the gentleman, Vince Ambrosetti who was our speaker for this three-day mission, stood up in front of us and said, “I want you to think of me as a spoon because I’ve come here to stir things up.”  And I started to think about what I had done, what I had promised, and I’m a person that if I make a promise, I want to live up to it.
G: And what year was this?
J: This was in ’97.
G: So two years after Melissa passed away.
J: Two years after and so I sat down in earnest and started to write up a business plan and all of the things that we had to do to go forward and a week later is when I had my stroke and I found myself in a situation where I should have died because what I had was actually – it wasn’t an aneurysm and so it’s called a bleed, but out of four people that suffer that type of a stroke, two will die immediately, one dies a few days later, and one will survive but there’s no guarantee as to how they will survive.
G: So at that moment, you were thinking that you should go ahead.  We’re going to have to come up on break now and when we come back, we’ll talk more with Jo Ann Glim about building memorial gardens to honor our children.  I’m your host, Dr. Gloria Horsley.  Please stay tuned to hear more and join our show by calling our toll free number 1-866-472-5792.  If you’d like to email us, you can do it through our blog, www.thegriefblog.com.  Stay tuned for more.
When we went to break, we were talking about how it came to you that you should build a garden and it was when your granddaughter Melissa died in 1995.  I wondered if you could tell her age and what she died of.
J: Melissa was born still on October 15 and so we had the anticipation of being grandparents and were excited about that prospect and the dream was over before it even began.
G: And then you had a little graveside service?
J: Yes, we did, and it was in Chicago in November and it was a bitterly cold day.
G: And you were telling us in the segment before, so for those who are just joining, tell us again how it came to you.
J: It came to me in a vision because when we were standing by the gravesite, I just with everything within me, I just said the voices of these children will never be silenced and I saw a vision of teardrops.  They were glass and they were touching and they just very gently were touching and made this beautiful melodic sound and I thought what better way to celebrate our children and to make sure that they’re always recognized that they’re with us.
G: And then it was two years later you just started to make an actual plan.  I was fascinated about that, weren’t you, Heidi? that she’d have to make a plan, kind of a business plan?
J: Well, I had just finished a small business course at college so that’s why I decided I’m going to take it in methodical steps and see what we could do, but I was interrupted because of the stroke and I ended up spending three months in a rehab facility learning how to do everything all over again because I was totally paralyzed on one side.  I couldn’t walk, couldn’t talk, couldn’t see, but I was blessed back to full health.
H: And you’re so passionate about the gardens even when you came back from your stroke it sounds like.
J: Oh, absolutely.  That was the promise and I don’t take making promises lightly.  If I make a promise, I plan to live up to it.
H: And was it a promise to Melissa, your granddaughter that had died as well?
J: It was a promise to her, to the other children that we have lost, and also to God.
H: Very good.
G: And you yourself are a survivor of having your father die when you were five and your mother at fourteen.
J: My father actually died when I was nineteen.
G: He kind of disappeared from the scene at five?
J: Yes.  And I actually lost all my family relatives except for one cousin by the time I was 21 so I learned a lot about grief at an early age especially at a time when grief was not talked about.  You just were expected to live through it, and I’m so grateful that people are opening up and talking about things like that. 
G: Well, tell us about the garden.  What is your thought about the gardens?  What do you think a garden does for people?  Were you a gardener?
J: I’ve always been into gardening.  I love it.  I’m not good at it but I love it.  I’m very very happy when I see something blossom and I’m always in awe when we go to a botanical garden and see the beauty that people can create who really have a talent.  But I’ve always been fascinated because with flowers, there’s such symbolism in the cycle of life and you really get to appreciate not only the beauty of it but the delicateness of it.
G: The fragility.
J: Exactly.  And I think that just really ties right into what happens with us when we lose a child.  Plus, there’s a growth that happens in a garden.  It’s very slow and sometimes you don’t even notice what’s happening and I think that’s what happens to us in our healing process.  It’s very slow and you don’t even realize that you are becoming better and until you see someone else who has lost a child recently and realized that you are strong enough to reach out and to help that person.
H: That is such a good point and that is so true.  I run sibling loss groups with the 9/11 siblings and they can’t tell that they’ve grown and they’ve changed and they’re in a different place like you said and they all lost their sibling on the same day so they can’t even look at each other and feel that they’ve been in a different place but when we had a group member come in that just had a recent loss, they realized that they were in a different place.
J: Yes.
G: I was thinking when I said the gardens are fragile, I think individual blossoms can be fragile but gardens are pretty hardy.  A lot of plants are pretty hardy. 
J: They’re pretty resilient, yes.  It’s the blossoms that fade away, but there’s always that promise of renewal and there’s so much symbolism and people when they’re in a garden they think about it and they find their own sense of healing and comfort within that garden.
G: Now Heidi you were talking about the 9/11 families.  There’s a 9/11 garden, right?
H: There is.  It’s called “Angel’s Circle” and it is a memorial garden in Staten Island that originally just started right after the World Trade Center attacks.  The next day, somebody just went out into the neighborhood and to this big space and placed something there and all of a sudden, everybody came and started planting things and placing things there and it just turned into a natural garden and the Borough of Staten Island decided to allow the Borough to have this as a permanent garden and it is called “Angel’s Circle” and you can go on their website and see it.  It’s beautiful.
J: This is what just fills me is when I hear stories like that because there’s over 300 gardens across the nation and they’re isolated and they’ve not been linked and a lot of us don’t know where they’re located and that’s what we’re trying to do is to reach out to these gardens and let them know that we’re here.  We wanted to develop a national registry with the names of the gardens because each one has such a unique story.  Some of them were started because of a particular cause.  Some of them are there because they’re honoring a particular child and it was a devastating loss to the full community.  And some of those are just providing a place of welcome for those that are in sorrow.
H: Absolutely. 
G: I’ve got to believe that there are more than 300.
J: Oh, I’m sure there are.  I think this is just the tip of an iceberg. 
G: Yeah, it’s a matter of getting the message out there and we hope that any of you who are listening will get in touch with us or Jo Ann and let us know about your garden, right, Jo Ann?
J: Oh, absolutely, and we have a six-inch bronze emblem that was designed for us by a liturgical artist and it’s really quite beautiful and there’s a place where there’s a number for that specific garden and one of the other things that we do and I know you’re aware of this because you’ve gone on to our website, we provide a place so that each garden will be shown on our website along with a link, if they have a website, a link to their website so people can go directly to them. 
G: That’s great and you can come on our website to find those.  Now tell people – give them your website. 
J: It’s www.childrensmemorialandgarden.org. 
G: Good, and that’s on our website, too, so you’ll be able to pick it up from there.  Oh, this is such an interesting thing because really its kind of a moveable feast in a way, isn’t it?  People could just go from garden to garden on vacation.
J: Absolutely.  And my husband and I have done that.  We’ve visited a lot of them along the way and people if they’ve not lost a child or have difficulty with grief, they may think that this is so sad but when you walk into this, you feel this special presence there.  I can’t explain it but it’s there and people go by and they’ll leave little mementos.  I know when I walk through town if somebody doesn’t remember my name they call me, oh, there’s the garden lady.
G: So this is in your town that you’re living in now?
J: In Bradenton, Florida.  This is where the original Children’s Memorial and Garden.
G: Okay, now you are the one that set that original garden up.
J: Myself along with a very very wonderful group of volunteers.
G: I’d like to know about that because I’d like to have our audience get an idea of how maybe they could do it but before then, it’s time for us to come up on break.  When we get back from break, hopefully we’re going to have one of your garden people call in and we have pictures of her garden on the web, Jane Jones, from Franklin, Tennessee.  So we hope that she’ll be on when we get back from break.
Before we went to break, I was introducing a guest who is going to come on, but I also, for those who are just tuning in, I want to mention that Jo Ann’s granddaughter, Melissa, died at birth or stillborn in 1995 and in 1997 Jo Ann dedicated herself to building gardens to remember Melissa and the other children so that they’ll never be forgotten and one of the people that has connected up with Jo Ann is Jane Jones.  Are you on Jane?
Jane:  Yes.
G: Hi.  Jane is from Franklin, Tennessee, and we have a picture of your gardens.  We got a picture of them.  They’re beautiful and they are on our website, www.thegriefblog.com.
Jane:  Yes, I’ve already seen it.
G: Oh, good.  And I was talking to you.  We talked earlier on the phone, and you were telling me that your husband, who is now deceased I am sorry to hear, decided that you should do a garden.  You are in the First Methodist Church down there and that you should do a garden to remember the children, what 17 children that passed away in your
Jane:  Right, before age 18.
G: Uh, huh.  And so you decided to do a garden with your husband.  Were you gardeners before?
Jane:  Yes, yes.
G: So you’ve always been gardeners, huh?
Jane:  Right.
G: But he was the inspiration?
Jane:  He sure was and he designed the plan and drew it out and made a model so we could see what it looked like.
G: And then you had people donate in the church?
Jane:  Right, and we had the families of the deceased children donating.
G: And he did the plan.  Did you have any special things for each child or just the general garden?
Jane:  No, we have a square stone that is around the water fountain.
G: I can see that in this picture.  If they go on our website, they’ll be able to see the water fountain and those stones around have children’s names on them.
Jane:  Right and the date or whatever the family would like to put on.  We had that done.
G: How wonderful.  And there’s nothing like a fountain is there?
Jane:  There sure is.  We have to cut it off in the winter but it runs all summer.
H: And where is the garden?  It’s not in your yard, right?
Jane:  It’s right behind our office called the Kennedy House.  It’s right behind our office at the First United Methodist Church in Franklin.
H: Oh, very nice.
G: It looks absolutely gorgeous and it has a wonderful little sculpture of a child pushing a wheelbarrow full of flowers.
Jane:  No, that’s not our’s.
G: Oh, that’s not your’s, huh?
J: That one’s up in North Carolina.
G: Oh, okay.  We got all three and I thought they were all three.  I see.  Your’s is at the top.  We’ve got a fountain and the stones around it.
Jane:  Right.
G: Wonderful.  Well, Jane, thank you so much for calling in.  Thanks for doing this and how did you get connected with the garden folks? with Jo Ann?
Jane:  Because we became a member of her association in Florida and we have a stone wall around the garden and she presented us a triangular plaque saying that we are members of a National Children’s Memorial Garden.
G: How fabulous.  Now for people who are out there, how would they find out about her?  How did you find out?
Jane:  About Jo Ann?
G: Yeah.
Jane:  Well, I don’t know because my husband did that.
J: I think I found her.
Jane:  That’s what I was going to say, then you found us on the Internet.
J: I did.  I did.
Jane:  Yes.
G: Oh, the Internet’s an amazing thing, isn’t it?
J: It is a wonderful tool.
G: Well, Jane, thank you so much for calling in and keep up the good work in the garden.
Jane:  Well, we’re sure trying.
G: It looks beautiful and I’m very pleased to have it on our site.
Jane:  Thank you.
H: Thank you, Jane.
J: They have a lot of symbolism in the garden up in Franklin.  We had a chance to visit it a couple of years ago.  It’s an intimate little spot with these huge trees that hang over it.  There’s a nice little swing that you can sit on and look at the garden.  There is a stone wall as she was saying but there’s one corner of the stone wall where it just kind of falls into rubble and they did it specifically that way to show that it symbolizes the lives that have been unfinished.
G: Oh, I can see that in the picture.  How wonderful.  What about the other two pictures that we’re seeing here?
J: Charlotte, North Carolina – the one that has the little statue.  That’s in Charlotte, North Carolina, and that’s started by Skip and Jerry Mudge.  It’s called Our Children’s Memorial and Walkway.
G: Oh, they were going to be on the show but they were off doing some other good work.
J: Yeah, they had a speaking engagement this afternoon.
G: Right, well, we have a couple of people who have called in to be on the show. 
J: Julie and Amy from Hilton Head. 
G: Hi Julie and Amy, are you there?
J&A:  Yes, we are.
G: Hi.  Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.
J&A: Thank you.
G: So you’re in Hilton Head.
J&A: Yes.
G: Oh, that’s a nice place down there.
Julie: Yes, beautiful.
G: Tell us about your garden.  Am I talking to Julie or Amy?
Julie: You’re talking to Julie right now.
A: And Amy, too, but I’m going to let Julie talk first so we don’t overlap, but go ahead sweetie.
Julie: The garden, we established it.  Our groundbreaking ceremony was back in May 2001, and we typically have an annual ceremony every year to have people come together and honor the memory of their child that is no longer living.
G: Now do you have a child that died?
Julie:  Yes, I do.  I gave birth to a stillborn child at 40 weeks, Sarah, in July of 2000.
G: And how about you, Amy?
A: And I very similar to Julie.  My first child, Jacob, was stillborn at 32 weeks in November of 1988 and then Julie and I, our paths crossed in September 2000 just by chance and we became instant friends and then realized we shared this common bond and from our friendship, the garden became a reality.  So everything kind of happened quickly as far as the creation from the time we just met and then we talked about our common bond and then we went to the right people and everything just kind of fell into place.  When we look back on it and see how it started and where it is today, it’s just unbelievable how it has grown.
H: And where exactly is it did you say?  I know it’s in Hilton Head but where did you do your garden?
Julie:  The garden is located right between the Hilton Head Regional Medical Center, which is our local hospital, and the LaMotte Building of the Professional Building that’s right next door.  There’s about three-quarters of an acre of land in between both buildings that the hospital generously donated to us and pretty much gave us free reign of what we decided to put in there in terms of plantings, any kind of sculptures.  We have been doing fundraising on and off for the last seven years to get our large fountain that’s in there as well as getting personalized memorial bricks for the children, various plantings and benches, swings, those types of things.
G: Wow.  What a wonderful thing and what a wonderful solace for families.
H: I agree and it’s so nice that it’s next to the hospital also.
Julie: Right and it’s also nice because in Hilton Head Plantation, very few people are from here or this area so we have a lot of people that have moved here and have their children buried in another state and have had to leave them behind and this has given them an opportunity to honor them where they’re currently living.  We’ve donated personalized memorial bricks for their child and they have a place to go now and reflect and think about this child.
G: Oh, that’s great.  Have you been to this garden, Jo Ann?
J: I have.  Yes in a terrible thunderstorm I met Amy out there.  It is gorgeous and they’ve got the whispering pines that are all around it and the fountain that’s in there and it’s just a beautiful, restful place.
G: It sounds lovely.  Well, if you ladies have a picture of your garden that you want to send to the blog, we would love to put it on the blog and also if you want to tell your story about how you started it and how people can do it, we’ll put that on with the picture.
H: Yes.  That would be important information.
Julie: Tell us where we send that to.  I want to make sure I have that.
G: www.thegriefblog.com.  You can also google Heidi or me.
J&A: Okay.  Great.
G: Okay.  Hey, thanks a lot for coming on the show and good luck with your garden.
J&A: Thanks for having us.  Bye bye, Jo Ann.
J: They also are very very involved with the health portion of it and they hold a health fair every year and that’s one thing that we’ve noticed with the number of these gardens.  I know Pastor Rod.  I don’t know if he’s going to be on or not.  I know he was planning on it but he’s in the middle of flying from one place to another so if his plane was late and wasn’t able to land, he may not have been able to call in, but at the church where their garden is is where they found Carlie Brucia’s body and this is a terrible case that went nationwide a few years back when she was abducted from a car wash and subsequently a few days later she was found murdered, but she was found on church grounds. 
G: And where was this?
J: This was in Sarasota, Florida, in the community right next to where we are, and Pastor Rod just set his heels and said we are not going to allow evil to overcome and the whole community came together and they put in a beautiful beautiful prayer walk.  It’s quite long and everybody participated in it and what they do is once a year they hold a fair, a safety rally for the people and we just attended it in February and they had over a thousand people that came out from the community to sign their kids up to make sure that they’re safe and to teach them safe techniques to take care of themselves when they’re not with their parents.
H: That’s wonderful.
G: That certainly does a couple of things.  The ritual idea of doing things ritually.  Heidi and I have talked about how healing that is, right, Heidi?  And then being able to do something to benefit your community is pretty powerful.
H: I was thinking that too.  I think these gardens are a place for communities and individuals to come together and heal and I don’t think they’re just a place for people that have lost children.  I think if you’re going through a hard time in your life and you’re searching for answers and to try to find purpose and meaning, sitting in a garden and meditating or praying I think would be very therapeutic and helpful.
J: Absolutely.
G: Well, it’s time for our final break now.  Jo Ann this is our last break so I wanted to get Pastor Rod on but wait just a minute, Pastor Rod, because I wanted to say to you, Jo Ann, is there anything quickly that you want to say before we get to Pastor Rod because this time goes by fast.
J: It does.  It goes by very quickly.  I just wanted to let anyone know who has a garden or is thinking of developing a garden to contact us.  There’s a form on our website that you can fill out.  If you’re developing a garden, we have a 30-page workbook that will help you through the different steps as you’re doing it so that you don’t feel like you’re stumbling through, and for those who are already developed, if you just fill out the form, then we can go ahead and have one of the emblems made up for you.  Make sure that we get you onto the website so people will be able to see your garden and you’ll also be able to take advantage of the calendar we have on there so that if you have events that are coming up, people will be aware of them.
H: And Jo Ann, what about Angel’s Circle?  I didn’t develop it and I had nothing to do with it but it’s a garden that I would love to see on your website.  Is it possible to get that on there or do I need someone that’s developed the garden to contact you?
J: I think probably seeing as you know the people or where it’s located to find out who it is that is there and invite them to come take a look at the website.  Talk to them about it.  If they decide it’s a group that they would like to join us, we would be honored to have them be a part of this. 
H: Very good.  Thank you.
G: And the website is www.childrensmemorialandgarden.org and you can also pick it up off our website and they also have a newsletter right, Jo Ann?
J: Yes, we do.  The latest edition just came out yesterday and it’s on our website under the news room so you’d be able to download it directly from there.
G: That’s great.  Now we want to hear from Pastor Rod.  We’ve been talking about Pastor Rod.
PR: Yes, good morning.
G: Hi.  Welcome to Healing the Grieving Heart.  Thanks for calling in.
PR: Well, you’re very welcome.  Glad to be with you.
G: Jo Ann was just telling us about what happened in your parish.
PR: Yes, at our church there, Carli Brucia was murdered back in 2004 and her body was left on our property and we, of course, needed to respond to that in some way.
G: What a shock.
PR: Oh, for the whole community it was a several day affair.  She was abducted on Super Bowl Sunday and she wasn’t found until four or five days later.
G: How many years ago was that?
PR: That was in February 2004. 
G: And then how did your garden come about?  Tell us about that.
PR: Well, where she was left was an undeveloped area and we just did not want to leave it there.  Even our children at church were a little afraid to be at our church and so we decided along with the rest of the community that we just needed to do something to clean that area up and make something beautiful out of it.
H: What a beautiful way to respond to such a horrific event.
PR: Yes.  It came together very naturally.  The family and so many people from the community contacted us and said we just must do this and within six weeks, the entire garden was built.  And like Jo Ann said, it’s quite a large garden.
G: Who designed it?
PR: We have a landscape architect who volunteered from the community to design it and it took us maybe about a week to get the final design and by that time, we had the land already cleared and ready to go.
G: Now did you have it professionally cleared or did the people in your church do that?
PR: Well, we actually had a man in our church that was very good at running a back hoe and so we rented one and actually I think it was donated and he had it cleared within about four or five days.
G: And then were people out there with their rakes planting and doing things or did you have a garden service or what?
PR: Well, there were tons of people from the community.  There were landscape people.  Nearly all the people who came were professional people.  People who laid concrete because we have a concrete path.  We had two Eagle scouts who took on different projects there to build a bridge and a paver path and so it was just a lot of different people coming together.
H: How healing for the community and I cannot believe you did all this in six weeks.  You must have had a lot of people that came in and worked on this garden.
PR: Oh, it was a tremendous amount of people.  We estimate the expense of the garden was somewhere around $250,000 if we had to pay for it, which we didn’t.
G: Well if you’re so inclined and you would like to send us a picture and a description of what happened, we’d love to put it on our blog, www.thegriefblog.com.  It’s such a wonderful story because communities are so frustrated when things like this happen and what a wonderful thing to be able to come together on.
PR: Yes, it was healing for the entire community.  We had a dedication service and many people came out and like Jo Ann said every year after that we’ve had a safety rally to teach our children how to be safe.
G: That is fabulous.
H: It is.  It’s wonderful.
G: Well, did you want to say something to Pastor Rod, Jo Ann?
J: I’m just so grateful that I met Pastor Rod and I remember seeing it when it was just scrub brush back there and sat in the parking lot and cried for this child and cried for him and the people in his congregation because it was a very devastating time down here when this happened and it has turned out to be such a place of beauty.
G: Ah, that’s great.  Well, thank you, Pastor Rod for coming on this show.  We really appreciate it and we love what you’re doing and it’s just an inspiration, isn’t it, Heidi?
H: Absolutely.  Thank you so much.
PR: Okay.  Thank you for having me.
G: Well, Jo Ann, before we close the show, is there something that you’d like to say to those people out there who are thinking about it?  Who it struck a little spark with them?  Or do you have any thoughts about how they might get started?
J: Well, one of the things that I just wanted to leave with everybody because I guess I have an optimistic outlook no matter what happens in my life is that for each of us who have gone through grief, we have an understanding that when we’ve lost a child that a lot of people don’t, and so we need to lovingly turn that perspective to helping others in the community to understand what it is that we need to help ourselves through this type of a grief and having a garden someplace where people in the community can congregate and to support the people who have been grieving is a good way to start a situation like that to start opening up some dialogue.
G: Now Jo Ann for people like me who have the black thumb or who are not inclined to garden, because I love to go sit in a garden for sure, is there some place that I can donate to help other people with their gardens?
J: Oh, absolutely.  Most of us who do this including us, we’ve been working on this since 1995 and I always jokingly say when I go out to speak that we work on pennies and prayers and that’s exactly what has brought us through.  And like Pastor Rod said, it’s the donations and the compassion of the people in the community that there does come a time when reality sets in and there are expenses that need to be taken care of in order to continue this type of work and so I know for any of the gardens that are represented on our website, I know that they can use help and I know that we ourselves definitely can use help as well.
G: So if I didn’t want to garden, I could still go feel like it was my garden by a little donation.
J: Oh, absolutely.
G: That’s great.  Well, it’s time to close our show now, and I want to thank you so much for being on the show, JoAnn. 
J: Well, thank you on behalf of everybody that’s worked with the Children’s Memorial and Gardens.  We all say thank you.
G: It’s been great hasn’t it, Heidi?
H: It has been.  They’re beautiful.
G: They really are and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to find out where the gardens are around my area in San Francisco and visit one someday.
J: I’ll send you an email.
G: Great.  Thanks, Jo Ann.  It’s time to close the show now.  Please stay tuned again next week when our topic will be Men and Grief and our guest will be Dave Pellegrin whose son George died in a motorcycle accident.  Dave lives in Hawaii and is currently president of the board of trustees of The Compassionate Friends Foundation. This show is archived on our blog www.thegriefblog.com as well as www.thecompassionatefriends.org website.  This is Dr. Gloria Horsley.  Please stay tuned again next Thursday at 9:00 Pacific time, 12:00 Eastern for more of Healing the Grieving Heart, a show of hope and renewal and support.  Remember, others have been there before you and made it.  You can, too.  You need not walk alone.  Thanks for listening.  I’m Dr. Gloria Horsley, and
H: Dr. Heidi Horsley.  Jo Ann, although your father, mother, and granddaughter Melissa are gone, they are not forgotten.  The voice of those who have died will never be silenced.  Their memories live on in the beautiful memorial gardens around the country.  Thank you for all that you do.
J: Thank you so much.