Local family treasures few photographs, mementoes of daughter they lost

By Penny Coles

Posted 2 years ago

As Lori Peters and her husband Jason took turns holding their dying baby daughter, they weren’t thinking about their grieving process or about recording Brooklyn’s precious little time with them so they would have mementos to look back on.

“You’re not in that frame of mind, to be thinking of the future,” says Lori, “but once that moment is gone, it’s gone forever.”

Lori and Jason have three beautiful, healthy children, but forever missing from their family is Brooklyn, who died of a rare disease when she was five months old.

She lived her first few months perfectly healthy, but once she became ill with the “bubble boy” disease, the time just flew by, says Lori.

Brooklyn was born with severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome. When she caught her first cold, Lori took her to the hospital and was sent home. When her daughter's health quickly worsened, Brooklyn was admitted and then transferred to MacMaster, where she fought for her life for eight days before passing away in their arms.

And although they have their memories of their beautiful daughter, they have just a few treasured mementoes in a small box to help remember her by.

“At the time, we weren’t thinking straight. We were devastated of course, and although we took a couple of pictures, it seemed so weird.”

Lori didn’t know Rachel Spiewak, now a friend and neighbour who does volunteer photography and is the area co-ordinator for a US-based non-profit organization called Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

Spiewak is a talented professional photographer who specializes in what she calls “big bellies,” or pregnancy shots—creating beautiful memories for the mom-to-be, dad and older siblings.

But when she is called out in the middle of the night on a volunteer job, she grabs a specially-packed bag that is always at the ready and heads out, usually to one of Niagara's maternity wards, to a completely different situation. A family has either lost their baby or is about to, and Spiewak is going to give them a sensitive, loving, lasting memory of their baby's all too brief time with them.

Sometimes referred to as infant bereavement photography, what Spiewak does is, she says, in some ways incredibly simple.

“I take photographs. That's what I do, and I do it well.”

At first, she was surprised and overwhelmed by how much her work meant to parents who had lost a baby. The comments she received from them tore at her heart.

But in the years since she has been volunteering with the organization she has come to understand why the pictures are so important.

“One woman just phoned me to say thank you,” said Rachel.

“She was driving home with my pictures, and she told me all she could think about was ‘today I’m taking my baby home.’”

She hears over and over that she is giving families something to focus on when they get home, to show others and to prove the existence of a baby who only survived for a short time.

Today is pregnancy and infant loss awareness day, and she feels it’s important to speak about what she does, despite the sensitivity of the subject.

What she hears most often from couples who have lost a baby is that they wish they had known such a service existed. Spiewak is trying to spread the word for those who might one day need her help.

Lori certainly wishes she had known about the service during Brooklyn’s last days. The photos Rachel takes are not like family snapshots—what she provides is a disk of beautiful, sensitive and professional photographs that can become a step in the parents’ healing process.

Lori does have a couple of family photographs Rachel has taken, then faded in a photo of Brooklyn, as if she is watching over Madison, now 11, Sheridan, six, and Ethan, four. The photos are a reminder to the siblings that they had a sister who is no longer with them.

But most of Spiewak’s volunteer work means travelling to a hospital room, offering her condolences and setting about doing her job. She refers to the babies as her "angel babies," and goes about the task, talking to the parents about their beautiful babies and speaking gently to the infants.

Sometimes, she says, parents hesitate to hold their babies, but Rachel’s professional directions help to make them feel more comfortable.

Leaving the hospital room is usually the hardest part—she knows the nurse will soon come and parents will say goodbye for the last time.

But once she gets to her car, she can’t wait to get home to hug her two healthy children.

Spiewak is passionate about what she does, and now she has help—others are starting to come on board, and the need is so great she is on the lookout for more volunteers, who must be professional photographers.

But at the same time she has trouble letting go—she can't imagine what could be more important than helping grieving parents, she said.

For information visit www.rsphotography.ca. or www.nilmdts.org.