Holly Pruett
Life-Cycle Celebrant, Home Funeral Guide,
Death Care Educator & Conversation Leader

Whether your loved one dies from COVID-19, or from an unrelated illness, accident, overdose, or suicide – death will look different in the time of pandemic. Ritual and ceremony can help you honor a loved one's death, connect with others to support the dying and their community, and engage meaningfully with the grief of these times - even with the restrictions of physical distancing. 

Working from my home, I can partner with you to:

• Design and lead "virtual" funerals and memorials using online connection platforms
• Write meaningful, memorable eulogies and obituaries
• Educate your family on safely caring for your loved one after death at home, including slowing down to mark the moment, body care, and current green burial and cremation options 
• Involve your family and community in creating rituals to serve your needs at this time, with or without the support of technology
• Plan rituals of remembrance or memorial ceremonies for a future time
• Officiate small, local in-person services around Portland, Oregon observing physical distancing guidelines (subject to current public health regulations)

Free & Discounted Services 

• The Pandemic Care Guide I published on the public information web site Oregon Funeral Resources & Education provides free access to accurate, current public health information along with inspiration for what to do when a funeral isn't possible and extensive resource links
• Free 30-minute phone or online consultation to individuals and families anticipating or affected by death during the time of the pandemic
• Free access to my set of questions to inform a eulogy (can also be used to inspire shared story-telling about a family or community member before or after their death)
  
• Online webinars and consultation on these topics at no cost to community groups
• 50% reduction in my regular pricing for individuals and families experiencing COVID-19 economic hardship

Qualifications & Experience 

• Certified Life-Cycle Celebrant (Celebrant Foundation & Institute) & Home Funeral Guide (Final Passages)
• Co-creator of the public information website Oregon Funeral Resources & Education; founder of the Death Talk Project (est. 2016), PDX Death Café (est. 2013), Death:OK, Let’s Talk About It (2015) & Death Talk Goes to the Movies (2015-2017); facilitator for Oregon Humanities’ Talking About Dying program (2015-2018)
• Certified in Thanatology: Death, Dying & Bereavement by the Association for Death Education & Counseling
• 5+ years of study with Stephen Jenkinson (Orphan Wisdom School); Masters in Applied Behavioral Science

Contact Me 
Please use my Contact Form to let me know how I can assist you.
Read more About Me, my celebrancy Services, and my background in death education.

As a gift to the community during the COVID-19 pandemic, here are questions I draw from as a Funeral Celebrant when I'm partnering with families to help them tell a life's story. With gratitude to my teachers and mentors through the Celebrant Foundation and Institute for some of this content, and the dozens of clients who have further shaped them.

These questions may help

• family members prepare what they would like to share during a ceremony
• a person preparing for their own death determine what they would like to share about their life
• inform the writing of a central eulogy or obituary

Choose only those questions that appeal to you; there is no need to answer them all!
 
Full Name:
Nicknames, how referred to by family/ loved ones:
Date of Birth:
Date of Death:

1. Biographical details, for example:
   
   • Circumstances of birth: where, characteristics of family (ie birth order)…
     
   • Childhood: Schools, organizations, clubs, athletics, friends, family, personality traits, health, travel hobbies, looks, tastes, talents, likes and dislikes of any kind such as:  nature, animals, sports, cooking, arts, languages, difficulties, special achievements.
     
   • Teenage years: Schools/universities, organizations, clubs, athletics, friends, family, personality traits, political, faith based or secular, health, travel, hobbies, looks, tastes, talents, likes and dislikes of any kind such as:  nature, animals, sports, cooking, arts, languages, difficulties, special achievements.
     
   • Adult years: Relationships & Family: married, divorced, remarried, committed relationships, homes, jobs, organizations, military service, titles, athletics, friends, family, personality traits, health, travel, hobbies, looks, tastes, talents, likes and dislikes of any kind such as:  nature, animals, sports, cooking, arts, languages, difficulties, special achievements.
     
   • Marriage/ Children/ Grandchildren:
2.  Interesting/ illustrative stories to share from anyone in the family?
3. Favorite memories?
4. Are there writings from the honoree, excerpts from letters or emails that allow us to hear them in their own words? 
5. What was most important in their life?
6. What was s/he passionate about; what got them excited?
7. What did s/he find joy in doing?
8. What were their dreams?
9. Favorite ways to spend time?
10. Favorite books/ authors?
11. Were there any significant events in their life that had a strong impact or influence on how s/he lived their life?
12. What was their philosophy of life? Did s/he have any favorite sayings? A motto that sums up their approach to life?
13. Cultural beliefs or traditions that could be tapped at this time?
14. Beliefs s/he held about dying, death, or what happens after death?
15. What were their religious or philosophical beliefs?
16. What did s/he find sacred or of value?
17. What symbols or rituals were meaningful?
18. What were their favorite possessions?
19. Favorite color/flowers?
20. What were their strengths and weaknesses?
21. Is there a shadow side to be acknowledged, aspects of the personality or life story that were difficult but a core part of who they were that deserve to be honored?
22. If they were a character in a movie or a play, what role best describes them?
23. What words best describe them?
24. If you had to choose only one word to describe their essence?
25. What did s/he do to make you laugh? 
26. How would s/he want to be remembered?
27. What will you do to honor their memory?
28. When you remember them, where do you picture them?
29. What do/will you miss the most?
30. How would you describe their legacy, i.e. what about them, or of their life, is living on? What was the most important thing they taught you?
31. What theme would you like to run through their ceremony? ie “the story of ______ is the story of…”
32. Is there other source material that could be woven into the eulogy, e.g. condolence notes, things written by or about the honoree at earlier times in their life, favorite song lyrics or verses?
33. What else….?

When Packy the elephant was delivered at the Oregon Zoo in 1962, he made news around the world: the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere in 44 years! After living to be the oldest Asian male elephant in North America, his death was mourned deeply.

I had the honor of writing and officiating a memorial service for Packy, attended on a rain-soaked Saturday morning by 500 and viewed, via live-stream and since, by more than 73,000. (Scroll down for a video link and the printed memorial program.)

While Packy's pachyderm family filled the neighboring yard, Packy was honored with a Rose Ceremony led by the Royal Rosarians to Beethoven funeral music performed by the trombone section of the Oregon Symphony. Longtime TV news personality Tracy Barry and the Zoo's elephant curator Bob Lee - Packy's lead caregiver for 17 years - brought tears to many cheeks as they eulogized their old friend. Thomas Lauderdale, of the internationally acclaimed ensemble Pink Martini, performed an original new composition for Packy and led a rousing musical finalé of the folk classic Green, Green. 

After everyone joined voices in a customized Litany of Remembrance (see program, below), I closed with the poem We Give Thanks for the Animals, shared with me by Seattle Celebrant Danna Schmidt. The Rosarians formed one final honor guard for Packy, then participants of all ages had a piece of cake in his memory (Packy loved his cake!) and told their own stories.

As The Oregonian reported: "even in death, Packy continued teaching lessons." One dad who brought his two young daughters "saw it as a gentle way to introduce his young ones to the idea of mortality. 'It was a rare opportunity to introduce them to the concept of death in this kind of setting,' he said. 'It was a very tasteful ceremony.'"

Excerpts from my memorial remarks:

We’re joined today in our tears and our tributes by tens of thousands around the region and across the world who have been sharing their favorite Packy stories on-line. 
 
Everyone has a story about Packy. The older among us remember his birth, like Joyce Ritter who was in the 5th grade and called the first elephant born in the Western Hemisphere in 44 years, “the biggest news ever”. She says, “When you were a kid growing up in Eastern Oregon, you dreamed about the day you could go to Portland to visit Packy.”
 
For nearly 55 years Packy inspired millions of children and adults to learn about elephant and animal conservation – a critical mission, with as few as 40,000 Asian elephants remaining in their rapidly vanishing native range. And it’s not just we, his adoring public, who learned from Packy. Conservation scientists attribute much of what we now know about elephant care to Packy. The list of discoveries is as long as his trunk, including breakthroughs that are helping to reduce human-elephant conflict in Asia.
 
With songs, books, Rose Parade floats, and even a beer named after him, Packy has been synonymous with Portland for more than half a century. And so it was only fitting that the Royal Rosarians, the official greeters and ambassadors of goodwill for the City of Portland, claimed Packy as one of their own, knighting him on his 50th birthday as Sir Knight Packy.

The English poet John Donne called the elephant, “Nature's great masterpiece… the only harmless great thing.” As we begin our memorial program, let’s imagine ourselves watching Packy at play, release ourselves from the concerns of the world outside Elephant Lands, and focus our gratitude on the well-lived life of this beloved pachyderm.

*     *     *
​
This is the fourth ceremony I've been privileged to create with the caring stewards at the Oregon Zoo. See also Elephants Never Forget (the dedication of their new habitat), Honoring Cultural Survival (the rededication of two historic totem poles), and A Place of Honor (the reinterment of remains of residents of the old county poor farm).

You may have heard of a home funeral – but a funeral for a home? That’s what Nancy knew she needed as her family home was headed onto the real estate market.
 
Known as the “Pink Palace” in her hometown of La Crosse, Wisconsin, this 1880s-era house had witnessed 60 years of Wernecke family life. Nancy and her sister had grown up there, sneaking out of the windows as teenagers. Their parents, Pa and Meme, presided over sprawling additions including an upstairs apartment that housed Grandma Sally and Grandpa Bill, and home decorating schemes later likened to a Mad Men set.
 
Meme’s decorating was part of our childhood history. I got a canopy bed and purple poodle wallpaper; Julie, a bed fashioned in the shape of a stage. I remember the fragrant lilac bush and glorious peonies that lined the front of the garage where I got my first bee sting as I stopped to smell the flowers. I remember how Dad turned your lawn into a skating rink in the winter. He would join us on the rink, hanging on to a wooden chair for balance as he donned his black ice skates.
 
Grandchildren had played for hours around the indoor pool and the park-like yard featured monuments to two of them who had tragically predeceased both their parents and grandparents.
 
Nancy’s distress over losing this family treasure chest and local landmark was compounded by the expectation that any buyer would raze the structures and rebuild, the land considered more valuable than the idiosyncratic house. It was one straw too many on the camel’s back of a family that had recently suffered the deaths of first Pa and then Meme, with Julie’s health fragile, and Nancy still recovering from divorce and newly navigating retirement.
 
For years your walls held our laughter, tears, and many warm memories. Now you stand starkly empty, evoking sadness in my heart, reminding me of all of the important people and experiences that were the very essence and bedrock of you.
 
At the suggestion of a member of a grief program she was attending, Nancy decided to hold a funeral for the family home. She began by writing a letter to the home and assembling a video montage from decades of photographs. As she worked through her memories and associations, we distilled the essence of the home’s presence in their family life to three words that would serve as themes for the ceremony: Foundation. Sanctuary. Witness.
 
On a late spring day she assembled her nephews in the empty home, her niece too pregnant to travel and her sister Julie not well enough to attend. After reciting the Lord’s Prayer out of respect for Pa and Meme’s beliefs, we began with a candle lighting and a calling of names.
 
Think now of those loved ones whom you’ve known here in this home. Parents, grandparents, siblings, nephews, nieces, friends, girlfriends and boyfriends, spouses, caretakers… Let their faces and names come into our presence… let them be part of our circle of gratitude and celebration and farewell… let them know they are welcome and remembered.
 
Nancy read her letter to the home, speaking not only to what had transpired within these walls but updating this beloved structure on the flourishing of the lives nurtured here. After a video trip down memory lane, each person began a solitary walkabout through the many floors and corridors, returning with a representation of something they wished to carry forward from the home, and something they wished to release, written down on slips of paper.
 
Coming back together, the family shared stories and affirmed the legacy of the place that would continue in their own lives. After joining their voices in a Litany of Remembrance, goodbyes were spoken in a ritual of release that drew on the transformative power of fire.
 
And so, as we prepare to say our final farewell to you, dear home, we reflect on your gifts and life lessons. You’ve taught us about the impermanence in all of life. As we’ve left and returned to your sheltering foundation over the years, you have underscored the poignant presence of love in our many relationships. And you’ve witnessed the complicated relationships laced within the tapestry of the lives of all who have traversed the landscape of your rooms and gardens. We offer gratitude to you, dear home, for our many precious memories, for holding our joys and sorrows, for providing the sanctuary and foundation we could return to over the years. As we bid this final farewell, we move forward carrying many cherished memories in our hearts. We thank you for all we can return to draw upon, reflecting on your faithful witness that will forever touch our tender hearts.
 
The ceremony closed with champagne, Meme’s classic Cheez Whiz canapés, and dancing in the kitchen, before the family headed down to the banks of the Mississippi River to release the ashes of the papers they had burned.
 
For Nancy, it was the culmination of years of faithful tending to the grief of the deaths of her parents and other endings in her life, of recognizing the importance of fostering a culture of remembrance in a family that would weather still more tragic losses.
 
She had no way of knowing that as she prepared to hold this funeral for the home, a resurrection was in the works. Buyers came forward who saw not the prospect of the money to be made from the blank slate of this prime property – but, instead, the capacity of this home to provide a foundation, a sanctuary, and witness to the recovery of those who'd been exploited and abused.
 
After preparing to see the “Pink Palace” demolished, the family could now celebrate that it would serve as a shelter to those who needed a home. Just recently, these socially conscious developers announced a new program – the space will serve as a Scholars House for single moms who are in school, offering supportive community and a palatial play space for their kids.
 
“I’m absolutely ecstatic,” Nancy told the La Crosse Tribune. “I consider myself a humanitarian and social activist, and repurposing it that way warms my heart.” 
 
May each of you feel the lightness of release, the satisfaction of a farewell well said, and the richness of four generations of memories. May those memories enrich the lives of the next generation. May you continue to feel the presence of this home and all the life she has sheltered, as your foundation, as a continued witness to the ways you honor your family legacy. And may you continue to find sanctuary in your memories, and most of all, in each other.

*          *          *
​
​View photos of the "Pink Palace" through the years and read news coverage in the La Crosse Tribune: 
'Pink Palace' offers jaw-dropping window in time
'Pink Palace' to assume another persona as home for moms in school, their kids

Endings don't seem to be waiting for December 31st this year. After a 12-month cycle that saw the deaths of three in my inner circle, Amber and I traveled to Tucson this month to close a 13-year chapter in our lives.

It actually started back in 1999 when, on the uncertain brink of Y2K, we decided to sublet our houses and travel the country in a 1973 motor home we named Betty. Our originally-planned six months turned out to be not long enough. With summer gigs in Michigan and long-distance contract work, we managed to live in Betty for 18 months, until my father's brain cancer diagnosis called us back to the Pacific Northwest.

We spent the winter of that magical sojourn on some women's land just west of Tucson's Saguaro National Park. The Sonoran Desert was endlessly fascinating to us, with its idiosyncratically animated cactus shapes and all manner of bird and animal life: quail, coyote, rabbit, dove, owl, lizard, javelina.

After my Dad died and we resumed "life as normal" back in Portland, the desert continued to call our names. We returned on vacation and noticed many houses featured casitas out back. We contacted a realtor and not too much later, we'd sold Amber's condo in Portland and bought a three-bedroom house in Tucson with a separately-fenced, one-bedroom off the alley that became our beloved retreat for the next 13 years.

Not exactly a "vacation home" - no pool, no view. But the sky was nearly always blue. The plant and bird and animal life, abundant. The rental income from the main house pretty much paid for itself. Every time we visited, we enjoyed old favorite places. Every time we visited we discovered something new. ​We joined, most years, with over 100,000 others in the remarkable All Souls Procession, first memorializing my father with a personal altar, later processing in Marcy's nightgowns five months after her death.

But in this time in which we all must learn the ending of things, it was time to let go of the responsibility of owning property 1,500 miles away. We sold the place easily and booked a flight to go down to clear out our humble but cherished casita.  

​While I knew it would be sad to say goodbye to our sweet little place, I didn't expect to have so many endings wrapped into this one. ​

Growing up in New Haven, Connecticut, my childhood was steeped in the whitewashed origin story of Thanksgiving.

As summarized by educator-activist Sarah Sunshine Manning: Pilgrims came to America, in order to escape religious persecution in England. Living conditions proved difficult in the New World, but thanks to the friendly Indian, Squanto, the pilgrims learned to grow corn, and survive in unfamiliar lands. It wasn’t long before the Indians and the pilgrims became good friends. To celebrate their friendship and abundant harvest, Indians in feathered headbands joined together with the pilgrims and shared in a friendly feast of turkey and togetherness. Happy Thanksgiving. The End.

While my understanding of the truth of those times matured as I grew older, it wasn't until I researched this blog post that I learned how Thanksgiving became a national holiday. As Manning explains, "Truth be told, this beloved lie was packaged solely for nationalistic consumption when, following the bloody Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1863. Back then, Americans were desperately in need of unity and inspiration. Hence, the myth of the first Thanksgiving was born to inspire and unite."

Today, at a time when we again feel the desperate need for unity and inspiration, what myths colonize our minds? And what stories offer another way?

There's been some awareness during my lifetime of the debt the American political system - mythologized as the world's first participatory democracy - owes to the Iroquois Confederacy (now known by their historically accurate name, the Haudnosaunee). US Senate Resolution 331, introduced in 1988 by Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), the highest ranking Asian American politician in U.S history, acknowledged, “the confederation of the original thirteen colonies into one republic was influenced…by the Iroquois Confederacy, as were many of the democratic principles which were incorporated into the constitution itself.”

Of the many shameful developments resulting from traumatized Europeans reenacting their trauma on this continent, on this Thanksgiving I mourn, in particular, that the founding fathers weren't equally influenced by the Haudenosaunee relationship with the rest of creation.

The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address is one expression of that relationship. Ramona Peters, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Mashpee Wampanoag (descendants of those mythologized in the "pilgrims' first Thanksgiving" story), explains: "We give thanks more than once a year in formal ceremony for different seasons, for the green corn thanksgiving, for the arrival of certain fish species, whales, the first snow, our new year in May—there are so many ceremonies; and I think most cultures have similar traditions. It’s not a foreign concept. Human beings who recognize greater spirit would have to say thank you in some formal way."

An understanding of the world as alive had been burned out of the pilgrims' culture; for the Puritans, there was one God only. Early Thanksgiving combined the austere thanks owed to that God with the older European traditions of harvest festivals.

Perhaps what we really need now is less unity - one God, one superior race, the false pride of nationalism - and more radically inclusive diversity: a valuing of the life in all things, a pledge of allegiance to the divine's many faces, praise like that practiced by the Standing Rock Water Protectors, gratitude like that voiced in the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address.

"Never lament casually," said the late, great Leonard Cohen. "And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.”

And so in this week since the election of Donald Trump, I have said very little. I have not joined the nightly disruptions to life-as-usual in Portland - lampooned as "white riots" by Dave Chapelle on Saturday Night Live. 

I'm taking some time to consider the focus and the form of my lament... considering: What happened such that Donald Trump seemed like a good idea to the people who voted for him? Is his election a betrayal of all that landed on these shores to become America, or its fulfillment?

I'm immensely grateful to have had the chance to attend, for three years now, the Orphan Wisdom School, where Stephen Jenkinson troubles us with such questions, including the biggest of all: How do we love a dying culture?

Two days before the election Stephen visited Portland unexpectedly, speaking for an afternoon to nearly 90 people assembled with less than a week's notice. He spoke in and of "the syntax of sorrow, the grammar of the gone, the manner of mortal mystery." Unwilling to collude with "the mania for fixing things that is everywhere," he made the case for increasing our emaciated appetite for "real heartbreak and the tutelage that comes from it."

His plea: To swivel our chair alongside the young people, to try to see what they see. "It's not the world you were born to. That's not coming back. In their eyes is the end of most of what you believe." Be willing to learn the end of all you hold dear, he asked. That's the act of love I'm asking of you.

The night after the election Amber and I took my 9 year-old niece Josie to a neighborhood vigil for loving kindness. Several hundred gathered outside the high school holding candles. Voices of sorrow were witnessed by flames held high. "This Little Light of Mine" was sung, with impromptu verse after verse upholding all that is at risk. The angry face of grief marched by the thousands just a few miles away, shutting down two interstate highways. This gathering we joined sought to elevate kindness.

I recited a poem on "the rhythm of kindness" posted on Election Day by a friend. And when it came time to speak my own mind, I voiced my gratitude for the Water Protectors at Standing Rock, that we would have them in our midst at this time, insisting on a bigger story. 

While I will find other words and actions, one week now after the Election, I stand by what I wrote that first night: Beneath the storm clouds of catastrophe that have gathered over this idea called America since our founding, there is goodness, and beauty, and love, and kinship - and that's what I'm determined to amplify in every way I can.

Don't call us protesters, say the young people​ standing against corporate extraction practices on the Missouri River in North Dakota. We are Protectors.

Unlike the secular political demonstrations I've participated in over the last 30 years, their call is spiritual. Their way of gathering to protect the earth and the water, ceremonial.

"Everybody standing here today is here because someone in your family, one of your ancestors, prayed that you would be here," we were told at a large solidarity event outside the US Army Corps of Engineers today in Portland.

While the Protectors' stance in North Dakota is slowly beginning to attract public attention, it is far from the only front in defense of what was once considered by all peoples, an animate world, a world in which we are all related, human and non-human, seen and unseen.

And it is only the most visible form of prayer for water. In honor of all those whose see their prayers as necessary for the well-being of the world, I'm sharing a recent article from the Washington Post about a 13-day ritual in which dozens of women and girls walk the entire length of the Potomac: "They will speak to the water, sing to the water, and pray for the water."  

"The walkers recite the phrase I will do it for the water in Ojibwe as they hand the water to one another," the article reports.

Organizer Sharon Day, 65, of St. Paul, Minnesota, is asked "if the walkers’ goal is to raise awareness about water pollution. Sure, awareness is nice, she responds — but that’s a paltry goal. The intent of this walk is to speak to the water’s spirit, not to a human audience.

"'All the while, we’re speaking to that water. We’re telling the water how much we care about her,' Day said. 'We really do support the work of other environmental groups. We believe what’s missing from most of this work is the idea that the water has a spirit, and we as spiritual people need to speak to that spirit.'"

..."She doesn’t view her walks as a form of protest. A child of the ’60s, she protested plenty — against the Vietnam War, in favor of civil rights and feminists and lesbians and American Indians. 'I spent my entire life protesting — until I carried that water,' she said. 'It’s not a protest. It’s a movement toward something with love. You’re doing it because you love these rivers.'"

The article also quotes Beth Brent, who planned to participate for a week and ended up walking for two months. "'It’s a prayer. Something about being in prayer every day, it’s powerful.' ...Brent, too, has worked with water cleanup organizations, and found something in the walking that was missing there. 'They keep it in the realm of science and water monitoring. That’s a very colonizing, Western white male way of engaging with nature,' she said, noting that Ojibwe tradition allows only women to carry the water on these walks, with men in supporting roles."

Day was asked, “Auntie, do you really think this is doing any good?” As the article recounts, "The child doubted that the women’s walk could prevent further degradation of the environment. 'The mining companies, they’re so strong. They have so much money,' the girl said.

"Day responded: 'But the water’s more powerful. The water’s more powerful and that’s who we’re speaking to.'"

Read the full article and get involved with #NODAPL Solidarity.

​"I talk to her every day," my friend says, of her mother who died last year. I've always been more tongue tied. Not with the living, usually. But with the dead.

Imagined conversations, remembered conversations - my thoughts are filled with these, exchanges with my father, my Nonna, my friends Bill, Marcy, Kathy, and more.

But to speak out loud - to them, to those who came before them, whose lives collectively, cumulatively, ended up as me - is to render me shy, uncertain, inept.

I used a song to unscrew my jaw when I knew I needed to say certain things to my dad at the memorial I held for him in my backyard eight months after he died. 

"Operator, well could you help me place this call? 'Cause I can't read the number that you just gave me. There's something in my eyes, You know it happens every time. I think about the love that I thought would save me."

Jim Croce (1943-1973) was the sound track to those fifth and sixth grade years when my father left us again and again for an affair he was unable to break off. And then he left for good, moving 6,000 miles away six days after his divorce from my mother was final on my twelfth birthday.

I bought two copies of Croce's Greatest Hits 25 years later when my dad was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer: one for him, one for me. Already unable to do many things for himself, he shrugged his consent when I offered to put it on the stereo. We wept through nearly every song. Those around us were badly discomfited. But I like to think that he and I, in those tear-soaked moments, were speaking the same language for perhaps the first time.

*          *          *

"The day my second daughter, Marina, was born, was the second happiest day of my life," Tamara Wedin says. "But it was also the second most heartbreaking. She was beautiful and perfect and had the deepest blue eyes you've ever seen...ten perfect little piggy toes...but she was not breathing. She had died two days prior, which we were fortunate enough to watch on ultrasound as her last heartbeat showed on the monitor."

Tamara has channeled her family's agony - grief that came close to taking her down - into a support program for other veterans who've experienced pregnancy loss or the death of an infant.
​
One in four pregnancies ends in a loss, according to Tamara, and studies show that for veterans and military families, the risks are even higher. Taps for Babies, now in its second year, is determined to educate others about the very real need for support after a pregnancy loss or infant death, and to make sure veterans are connected to the very best support the community and VA system has to offer. The event, the first of its kind for veterans in the nation, brings together grieving families, non-profit organizations, and VA staff.

At the inaugural Taps for Babies program last year at the Portland VA Hospital, I witnessed two of the most moving sights of my life. The first was the playing of taps for the "babies lost too soon" to military families. A uniformed honor guard, accompanied by the mournful notes of a bugle, slowly and ceremoniously folded a flag and placed it on an empty chair in the front of the auditorium. Those dignified moments were a time outside of regular time, in which the pregnancy and birth traumas experienced by veterans and their families received long-overdue acknowledgement.

Just as moving as the silence that filled the space around the bugle notes were the words we heard from an unexpected speaker. Among the children present on this family-focused day were Tamara's infant son and her older daughter Kiri, who had served as unofficial ambassador to those of us setting up exhibit tables, offering to help organize our displays.

When all the grown-up speakers had finished their remarks and the VA chaplain prepared to close the program, four year-old Kiri approached for the microphone. She told us about her sister Marina, about her death and the ways in which her family keeps her memory a part of their lives. She offered the simple lessons from their experience as a gift of support to others.    

Tamara tells me, "Kiri has already asked me if she is speaking this time. She asks me almost daily how she can help the mommies who've lost their babies. She always wants me to pass on the most profound things."

Tamara welcomes inquiries about the October 28 event in Portland, Oregon and how to get a Taps for Babies program started in your community. Currently working with the Orlando Veteran's Administration on starting a program, Tamara quotes the saying, "There is no expiration on my oath of enlistment." She says, "This program is ultimately about looking out for each other and leaving no one behind." Email: tapsforbabies@gmail.com