08/24/2026
I've tried a million different ways to write this, so I think I'm just going to lay out all the feels. Vulnerability is hard.
I've been preserving flowers for six years now. In that time, I've had the incredible honor of creating hundreds of frames for brides and countless memorial pieces for families who have lost someone they love.
But the customers who have always stayed with me the most are the moms who have lost their children.
I'm a "fix it" person. I always want to make things better. I know there are some things in life that simply cannot be fixed, but when a mom hands me flowers from an early miscarriage or the very last flowers she has from a child who lived for years, I find myself hoping that somehow, pressing those flowers might make even the tiniest part of it hurt less.
I know it doesn't.
But I still want to try.
In 2020, I lost my 31-year-old cousin to natural causes. There was no warning. No explanation. No foul play. She simply went to sleep and never woke up. Unexpected. Tragic. And, even after all these years, still without the answers we desperately wanted.
She was the first memorial frame I ever created.
I spent forever trying to make it perfect. I remember thinking that if I could just make the frame beautiful enough, maybe somehow I could make the loss feel a little less devastating.
Again, I knew I couldn't fix it.
But I tried anyway.
Then, last year, I had just found out I was pregnant. I was in those very early days of pregnancy, just beginning to tell the people closest to me, when I received a message asking me to preserve another set of flowers.
My heart sank.
Another child gone far too soon. Unexpected. Tragic. No explanation. No reason why.
I did what I could through the morning sickness. I pressed the flowers and moved into wedding season. I tried to keep moving.
But I thought about her every single day.
I thought about her family. Her friends. Her siblings. Her mom.
The thought of losing a child was something I couldn't comprehend.
Then Estella was born.
Just weeks before she arrived, I remember worrying about everything else. Would I be able to work enough? Would I be able to grow my business? Would I still feel like myself?
And then she was here.
And suddenly, none of those things mattered.
I looked at this tiny person I loved more than I could have ever imagined loving someone, and with that love came something I wasn't prepared for: the what-ifs. The protectiveness. The fear. The anxiety that comes with knowing just how much you have to lose.
This year, I've attended more funerals than I have in my entire life.
At every single one, there has been a mom sitting in the front row.
Su***de. Strokes. Heart attacks. Kidney disease. Car accidents.
Different circumstances. Different stories. Different lives.
But the same unimaginable heartbreak.
It's true what they say: when one mom cries, we all cry.
No mom should ever have to bury her child.
I'd be lying if I said all of this hasn't affected me...and, in turn, my business.
There have been a lot of days when postpartum anxiety has won. There aren't many people I let watch my daughter, and 99.99% of the time, she comes with me everywhere.
I've questioned whether I'm being overly protective. I've questioned whether I'm doing enough. I've questioned so many things.
But I think becoming a mom changed the way I see every single family who trusts me with their flowers.
Recently, when I delivered these frames, I had the opportunity to talk with Meghan, Tilly's mom.
We talked about the question I find myself coming back to again and again:
How do we help a mom when we know we can't fix it?
She told me that grief is a club no one ever wanted to belong to. That everyone's journey through it looks different. And that you can't force someone to grieve a certain way or be ready for something before they're ready.
But you can be there.
You can listen.
You can remember their child.
You can remind them that their child mattered...and still matters.
Meghan has taken that idea and turned it into something beautiful. In honor of Tilly, her coffee shop has created an incredible space for the Chippewa Valley to grieve, connect, and heal. She has started a monthly grief support group and even launched a grief retreat that has already sold out.
She couldn't fix what happened to Tilly.
But she found a way to help other people feel a little less alone.
And maybe that's what we can do for one another.
If you've made it this far, I want you to know this:
You are not alone.
Every frame I get to create is an honor. I know I cannot fix what happened. I know I cannot take away the pain of losing someone you love.
But I hope that, in some small way, the flowers I preserve can give you something tangible to hold onto.
A little piece of a wedding day.
A little piece of a person.
A little glimmer of someone who was here, who was loved, and who mattered.
Especially the ones who left far too soon.
Thank you for trusting me with those pieces of your story. 🤍
