2022 Walk to Remember — Opening Speech

Hello Everyone,

Thank you, Katie, for sharing your story with all of us!

I’m Shelly Bathe Lenn, Bereavement Specialist with the center. It’s an honor to be here today with all of you as we gather to remember your sweet child—your son, daughter, your sister, brother, your grandchild, niece, nephew, your friends and neighbors.

Morgan Harper Nichols reminds us that BOTH joy and grief are natural processes and we are allowed to feel them fully.

Joining us today is no doubt bittersweet. We want this Walk to Remember to be a sweet remembrance for each of you, but we also recognize that it’s a hard reminder of why we are here in the first place. Being here provides an important opportunity to remember your child and is commemorating them. Commemoration is a necessary part of one’s grief process. Its key to find ongoing opportunities to remember your child—not only in public like today, but also in private ways, alone, with family, with friends. Honoring your child’s short life is grieving fully.

It takes courage to be here today. Coming out to our annual Walk to Remember can be exhausting. It can stir us up and bring back hard memories. I want to give a gentle reminder to do what’s needed to comfort yourself today. Let the tears flow. Ask for a hug. Keep hydrated. Say your child’s name. Share a story about her or him. Take time alone. Hold someone’s hand.

Coming out in this public setting also helps us feel less alone. Everyone here has or knows a child who has died. You are not alone. We hope that you feel the healing power that we are collectively emanating...right here, right now. I invite you to take a moment and look all around you and feel the collective compassion, the support and love. (PAUSE HERE) Take it in. Hold it dear. We hope that you each feel comforted in the sheer numbers of us. We are all here today, in this beautiful setting, to support you on your grief journey.

Before we kick off the walk portion of our day, I want to share some words from Alex Mammadyarov. She writes that, “Healing lies right at the precious intersection of honoring our deep disappointment, our sadness, our rage, and leaning into the belief that good things, things other than pain and loss are possible.”

Now, we welcome you all to join us at your own pace to walk down the paved path to Silver Lake or Pearce Lake where each of you can take a rose, and after a short reading of poems and names we can release the flowers into the water.

-Shelly Bathe Lenn