WAYLAND, Mich. — A place for parents to share their grief and remember the children they lost is now at Wayland Mini Park. A memorial sculpture was dedicated Tuesday night in Wayland. It was an idea months in the making from a group of mothers whose children have died.
"We wanted to give that to parents to help parents have that because I mean, there's nothing worse than losing your child. There's been a lot of children that have lost their lives and it's not even just children, young children, people who lose their lives at 30 or 40. Those are children to people too. We have seen an increase in the youth around here in the past few decades," said the president of Woman of Wayland, Holli McPherson.
The Women of Wayland dedicated a memorial on Tuesday to children in the community who have passed away. The Woman of Wayland said this sculpture allows grieving parents to have an alternative to going to the cemetery.
"It's very important, you know, it's not everybody likes to go to graveyards. It's nice to have another place that you can come and just sit by the fire and have a drink and just sit there and relax and remember them," said the treasurer of Women of Wayland, Emmy Wagner.
The memorial sculpture is symbolic of a mother's love. From various angles, the sculpture can be interpreted and perceived differently. The president of the Woman of Wayland said artists helped to create this piece to showcase a mother's grief and love for her deceased child.
"A couple that made this beautiful sculpture and they worked with our ideas, and then their ideas. They created a heart that has an infinity in it at the bottom. It also has three lines going through it to show the people who were involved in the lives. The heart is a representation of the person that was passed, and the lines intertwine to show the continuously imprinted," said McPherson.
The Women of Wayland said they will soon have a layer of bricks around the sculpture, for people to add the names of their loved ones to the memorial.
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