Tucked away in a quiet corner of our recently renovated church garden, sitting peacefully beneath the shade of a tree, is a new addition to Christ & St. Luke’s: The Children’s Memorial.
The vision for this space was brought to life by Heidi Anderson, a longtime parishioner who first found her way to our pews during the tenure of former rector Fr. Win Lewis. For Heidi, the memorial is deeply personal, born out of the shattering experience of losing her infant son, Sully, to a genetic condition. This year marked what would have been Sully’s 18th birthday.
The loss of a child is a “visceral, physical memory that does not simply fade away.”
As anyone who has experienced deep loss knows, grief shifts and changes shape over time, but the common platitude that time heals all wounds often rings hollow. For a parent, Heidi said, the loss of a child is a “visceral, physical memory that does not simply fade away.” Yet society struggles to hold space for this specific kind of enduring sorrow. People are often afraid of grief, offering misguided comforts, or eventually tiring of hearing about a loss that happened years ago. Grieving the loss of a child can be extremely isolating.
The inspiration for a physical space of remembrance began in 2020 when Heidi was traveling in Scotland. While visiting a church, she found a small table in the back addressing pregnancy and infant loss, inviting visitors to take a stone and place it outside in the church’s garden. Placing her stone onto a growing pile, Heidi, an American tourist, miles from home, felt profoundly “seen and held.” There was no one hovering, no one offering unsolicited advice to “fix” her pain; there was just a quiet, dignified acknowledgment of an unimaginable loss.
When she returned home to Norfolk, Heidi shared this vision with Fr. Noah Van Niel. With the garden renovations underway, a nestled spot under a tree was chosen. Heidi worked alongside the church’s Arts Guild to carefully craft the plaque, choosing durable concrete for the installation so it could withstand the elements.
Crucially, the memorial was designed to be expansive. While Heidi’s personal experience was with infant loss, the memorial is intentionally open to anyone mourning a child, whether through a pregnancy loss, the death of an infant, or the loss of an adult child. It is a place for grieving parents, grandparents, and siblings to find a quiet moment of companionable sorrow.
Christ & St. Luke’s happens to be located near the Ronald McDonald House on Colley Avenue, and the Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) — where, sadly, not every child makes it through their illness. We are happy to serve the community in this quiet way.
For Heidi, finding Christ & St. Luke’s was a critical step in navigating the long landscape of her grief. The loss of Sully completely dismantled her previous constructs of faith, which had little room for such tragedy. In her search for a faith community that could hold her pain, she began slipping into the back pews of Christ & St. Luke’s. Here, she found a church that did not demand absolute uniformity of thought, but rather offered a broad, expansive welcome.
At Christ & St. Luke’s, we believe in a God of unconditional love who meets us in our deepest vulnerabilities. The Children’s Memorial is a physical manifestation of that theology. It is not a place of easy answers. It does not attempt to explain away the horror of losing a child. Instead, it is a testament to the fact that we are not meant to carry our heaviest burdens alone.
Already, the memorial is fulfilling its quiet purpose. Recently, a friend of Heidi’s visited the garden to lay a stone and leave flowers for a daughter she lost in her third trimester, a sorrow she rarely feels free to voice in her daily life. The memorial gave her a dedicated space to honor her child. As Heidi notes, it is heartbreaking to see the stones gather, but it is also a reminder that those who grieve are part of a shared company, walking together through the unimaginable.
We invite anyone who carries the weight of such a loss to visit the Children’s Memorial, regardless of your religious beliefs. You do not need to explain yourself, and you do not need to speak. You only need to know that in this space, your grief is witnessed, your child is remembered, and you are held by a community of grace.
We are also deeply sorry for your loss.
