After experiencing the stillbirth of our beautiful son Christian my world ended. My soul left my body. I was weak. I weighed next to nothing, my skin was so pale it was almost transparent. I stopped living and started existing. I stopped answering the phone. I put down my paint brushes. I didn’t cry anymore. I was dead inside.
After 18 months of trying to make sense of the cruelness that was the reality of our lives, I dreamed of our son for the first time. I was walking along a beautiful beach. Up ahead of me were three young children, their skin glowed in the warm sunlight. There were two boys and a girl. They were too young to be by themselves, especially by the sea and I worried for them and decided I would go and see where their parents were. As I became closer to them I could see that they were drawing in the sand with pieces of driftwood. They spotted me and before I could do anything they skipped off up into the sand dunes. I could hear them laughing as they disappeared from my sight. Their giggles echoed out to sea. As I got to the point where they had been drawing, I saw that they had written their names in the sand. The names read Noah, Christian and Bella. It was only then that I realized that I had dreamed of him and for the first time since his fatal diagnosis. I felt my blood begin to pump around my weary body again. My soul had returned and my light that had burned out had been reignited. He was okay. He was more than okay. He was living a full and amazing life on Heaven’s Beach and he was with his friends who had also left their families too soon.
This dream inspired me to visit the beach and write Christian’s name in the sand. On August 19th 2008 Christian’s Beach was born and our lives were changed again forever. Since that day back in the Winter of 2008 over 17,000 children’s names have been written in the sand at sunset on Christian’s Beach.
Over the last few years I have felt led to share my experience with others walking the road of pregnancy, infant and child loss. My family and I have created three international days for bereaved families. Bereaved Mothers Day, Bereaved Fathers Day and August 19th – Day of Hope.
You can find most of my Beach Art and Memorial Beach Photographs here.
You can visit all of our projects by clicking on our PROJECTS tab at the top of this page.
Project Heal is my place of healing. It is my place to come and write about my life, what is inspiring me, what I am working on, what my children are teaching me, what this life is teaching me. I write often at my facebook page, it is filled with my photographs and stories of strange and mysterious happenings.
Grief is a part of me. She leans on me heavily some days, but she does not define me. I am so much more than her… and there is so much more to you than her.
If you are here because your heart is broken my hope for you is that you can begin to heal – that you can find the light that shines within you… it never goes out, it may dim at times, but like your soul, your light is eternal. May you find your light again and see that you are a real gift to this world.
With love and blessings to you,
CarlyMarie
