Memory boxes can take

many forms and serve many purposes. I have seen many - everything from a matchbox to a packing case and an old "tea chest". The first held a tooth from the owner's first dog and the last the owner's toys from early childhood - all carefully preserved by a parent.

There are other memory boxes though and they serve a special purpose. We have a special category in the Handicrafts section of the state's show for "Handicrafts for others". There are two classes - one is for soft, cuddly toys which go to the Women and Children's Hospital to be given (not sold) to children in need. The "need" in this case may be anything. The toy might be given to a child who has lost everything and needs a comfort toy or a child in a special environment who needs something clean and new or a child who needs a distraction toy when facing a major medical procedure. 

And the other class is for "memory boxes". These are given to mothers who have lost a child. There are never enough of these donated. The hospital could use many more. There are never enough donated because most people are unaware of how hard a miscarriage can be. They do not know how much a mother can grieve when they lose a child. Being told to "get over it" is not the answer. It was never the answer and it will never be the answer.

My paternal grandmother lost seven children - almost certainly all of them to a problem which would have allowed some of them at least to be saved. She bore two boys successfully but she also bore the loss of seven children in almost silence. It was not until I was in my late teens and we were changing the sheets on the big bed one morning when she mentioned it. Her eyes filled with tears even then when she was a woman in her late eighties. I felt awful for her but I still did not understand. It had not (and has not) happened to me. 

I still remember that morning though and I hope I know the importance of the memory boxes which are made to be passed on to the women who have lost something so irreplaceable. We don't put anything in them. We simply pass them on. I don't know who gets them but one of the volunteers has said the recipients are carefully chosen - and that they always need more than they have. I am hoping we might get more than usual this year. It would help.

We had a particularly lovely one last year. There was a great deal of work in it. I met the woman who had made it. She did not say anything. She did not need to say anything. She had the same look in her eyes as my grandmother had all those years ago. The memory might be painful but she was passing on her understanding as well.