GARDEN OF INNOCENCE!

Observation of the Day

Today's observation comes from the San Diego Union Tribune (edited). It is a touching story about the buriel of abandoned babies.

By Sandi Dolbee
UNION-TRIBUNE RELIGION & ETHICS EDITOR

March 1, 2008

Bare branches of trees in winter form slender shadows on the lawn, like fingers reaching out to gently rock a cradle. A raised marker welcomes visitors with these words: “Garden of Innocence. Final resting place for abandoned children.”

While most in the Garden of Innocence have individual markers, one tablet has more than three dozen names.
Annmarie joins them this morning, when she will become the 100th baby buried by a charity whose founder couldn't bear the thought of infants going unclaimed in death.

“These are human beings,” Elissa Davey said. “They don't deserve that.”

“To me, it's giving dignity to somebody who had none, and it's giving love to somebody who had none,” Davey added. “The people who come to these services walk away knowing that that baby is a part of their lives.”

Like many of those buried at the Garden of Innocence, Annmarie was a hospital stillborn. A spokesman for Grossmont Hospital said the family was unable to make any other arrangements. Others were found dead elsewhere, their grim discoveries in a landfill or trash bin, often making the news.

“We don't dwell on that part,” said Georgene Kruzel, a 54-year-old Spring Valley woman who became president of the group in January. “We dwell on making that life recognized. Our agreement with the county is we basically get the child with very little information. We don't need to know.”

Here is what Kruzel and Davey do know: It takes a village to bury these babies.

The initial land was donated by El Camino Memorial Park in Sorrento Valley (donations have subsequently helped buy adjacent property). Volunteers make the caskets and baby blankets, write poems for each child and supply a toy to be tucked into the coffin. The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic service organization, provides the honor guard.

Larry Campitiello, a local Knights of Columbus member, was there in full dress uniform for the first service nearly nine years ago.

“I showed up with six of my brother Knights,” remembers Campitiello, who is 71 now and lives in Rancho Bernardo. “We've had Knights of Columbus at every burial ever since.”

Baby-naming honors are rotated to volunteers, donors and anyone who expresses an interest, according to Davey. Campitiello and his wife named Baby No. 100. “My wife and I had three sons,” he explained. “We decided way back that if we ever got a girl, we would name her Annmarie.”

Even if there is a known birth name, Davey said the program gives the baby a new one. Her reasoning: “The person who gave them that name didn't care.”

The lining for Annmarie's casket was made by Alice Busch, a 60-year-old San Marcos resident who learned about the Garden of Innocence through the Mormon church she attends. The cloth is polka-dotted flannel, trimmed in lace. Busch said she wanted something soft and delicate, something that would bring comfort.

“I just have never had anything touch my heart like this has,” Busch said of the Garden of Innocence project. “You hear about these things all the time in the news, but you never hear about what happened to them afterward. Howard Sanders, a woodworker who heard about the program through his mother, crafted the coffin out of sapele wood, which has a reddish-brown luster similar to mahogany.

Sanders, a 39-year-old San Marcos resident, said he got involved because he felt it was the right thing – and because it may serve as an example of service to his own children.

“By doing this, I am able to teach my daughters that this is what we do,” he said.

Wally Hobbs, one of several funeral directors who volunteer their services, will deliver Annmarie this morning in his shiny hearse, a specially outfitted black van.

“I take pride in doing the funeral,” said Hobbs, 61, of All Faiths Mortuary and Crematory Services in Rancho Peñasquitos. “When it comes to children, they need to be loved.”

Even with the donated help, each funeral still costs about $400 in fees and other expenses. Those costs are borne by donations to the Garden of Innocence, a registered nonprofit charity.

Abandoned babies used to be buried in unmarked graves at the city-owned Mount Hope Cemetery. Now, after a certain amount of time elapses in which babies of at least 20 weeks in gestation remain unclaimed, county officials contact Davey.

The services are open to the public, generally drawing crowds of a handful of people to more than 70.

Some people, like a couple visiting San Diego on vacation, show up after reading the funeral notices like this one from a few months ago: BABY NANCY Saturday, December 15, 2007, at 10 a.m., Garden of Innocence – El Camino Memorial Park. Public Welcome. Garden of Innocence provides dignified burials for abandoned babies.
“People come for all kinds of reasons,” said Kruzel, the group's president. In the couple's case, the wife was grieving the loss of an adult son. “They came to the service and were uplifted,” Kruzel said.

Have a nice day and pray for the innocent!

Sam