His Stone

On the weekend DH and I finally went and placed the order for Harrison’s grave marker. We had discussed the marker and visited the supplier but could not both agree on how to personalize the monument. The stone is so very important to us as it will be the only public marking that shows he existed. Because he never took a breath there is no record of who Harrison was, no birth certificate, no death certificate not even a legal document of stillbirth naming him.


The wording on the stone brought up a lot of grieving differences DH and I have. DH sees him as his baby forever where as I want him to grow up and mature. DH loves the song from Robert Munsch; Love you Forever. The song

“I'll love you forever, I’ll like you for always. As long as I am living my baby you will be.”

Mr. Munch wrote this song in honour of his two stillborn children. DH and I both love the sentiments of the book and chose to inscribe “I’ll love you forever, I‘ll like you for always” on his stone. At my request we did not include the final two lines because it did not fit our personal beliefs.

The final personalization of the stone was a monkey; we referred to Harrison as our lil monkey! He was given a few stuffed monkeys before birth and we always imagined him being an active lil man climbing and jumping. A dear friend of DH drew us a monkey that fit both what DH and I had in mind.

We had to personally deliver the design to the stone maker which completely dumbfounded DH who works in information technology as to why the memorial place did not have an e-mail or a website. At the visit DH offered to send him the drawing in .jpg format so he could manipulate them, again the electronic version was turned down. The following morning it dawned on me as to why this industry did not make proper use of technology. The majority of cliental do no work with computers. We were using a service too soon in our lives with our modern day expectations. The death of a child and the experience of the parents are so out of life’s organized plan and this was just another reminder.
Placing the order for his stone has given me some needed peace and ability to move forward to welcome Sprout.