My Why: Shannon Chappell

                                                                Photo is of baby Annelise Caudill by Affiliated Photographer Jen Potter

Volunteering in Memory of My Sister: Why I Serve with Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

My parents were just teenagers when they found out they were expecting my older sister. My mom had already celebrated her baby shower and was eagerly preparing to welcome her baby girl. On Christmas Eve in 1978, she went to the hospital ready to give birth. Instead of bringing home her daughter, she experienced the heartbreak of a stillbirth. The umbilical cord had wrapped around my sister’s neck.

My mom never had the chance to hold her baby. She was not able to look at her. At that time, remembrance photography was not offered to families experiencing infant loss. There were no hospital photographers and no organizations like Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep to preserve those final moments.

Decades later, my mom was given a single photograph of my sister taken in her casket. It was the only image she ever had. That photo meant everything, but it could never replace the opportunity she lost to see, hold, and remember her baby in those first …