Infants Remembered in Silence offers support to Waseca area parents who have lost a child
By Diana Sundwall, Guest Columnist
Faribault Daily News
November 14, 2013

Infants Remembered In Silence has many wonderful volunteers who provide many of the items that are used by parents when a child dies. One of our volunteers began knitting, crocheting for IRIS 19 years ago. This wonderful woman had experienced a loss but never spoke the details.

In the fall of 2012 she came to the IRIS office with a quilt square for the IRIS 25th anniversary quilt. She stated that she didn't know anything about her son who was stillborn; she didn't know his date of birth, year of birth, how big he was, where he was buried/if he was buried or anything else. She wanted to take part in the quilt project and honor him by making a quilt square to give to another mother, one who knew something about her own child.

As she said, "I will be remembering my son with the square and she can remember her child with the words."

After speaking to the volunteer for a few minutes about the child it was clear she really didn't know anything about him. She said, "back in those days we were told to forget this child, go home and have another. I just can't seem to forget him, I think about him a lot."

We asked if she would give us the honor of letting us look for her son. She said, "yes, but don't expect to find him. It has been a long time."

With the help of Vanessa Zimprich of the Waseca Historical Society we were able to find this precious little boy's unmarked grave in a metro area cemetery. Within a month of beginning our search, Vanessa and I took this grieving mother to her son's grave, 58 years after his full-term stillbirth.

We were also able to provide her with documentation from the state listing the cause of death, date of stillbirth and other information the confirmed documentation provided by the cemetery.

Following our visit to the cemetery, another IRIS volunteer stopped into the IRIS office and picked up that precious quilt square and embroidered a train on it with all of his information.

The train was important because the little boy's grave overlooked passing trains and his mother said, "little boys should get to play with trains."

Who would have thought that quilt square would have brought such joy and emotion?