We all suffer loss in our lives and we all have to work out how best we can manage to find a way through that heartache.
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That can take so many forms and can arrive unexpectedly or be something, such as with a terminal cancer diagnosis, that we at least have the time to allow us to prepare for in some way.
But whatever happens, it’s never an easy thing to confront.
Thurgoona mum Bailee Smith’s experience has been the heartache of losing a baby girl mid-pregnancy.
To compound her grief, this happened not once but twice.
The Tallangatta school teacher’s first loss was their daughter Lucy, at 21 weeks, back in 2011.
Seven years later it happened again, when Georgia – who was 22 weeks’ old – was delivered before she then died in her mother’s arms.
What she has experienced is difficult for so many of us to truly comprehend.
Yet despite the enormity of her loss she has been able to put that aside to help others.
This has propelled her to make a commitment to support women’s mental health.
Bailee’s efforts have been truly phenomenal, as she is now ranked No.2 on the national fundraising campaign Liptember.
To date she has raised nearly $5000 through her Butterfly Kisses team.
The campaign urges other women to “kiss away the blues” through wearing wild and wacky lipstick every day in September.
And she has done it all for one simple yet difficult reason; to give her grief some purpose and, she says, to help other mothers who have had to go through such difficult times.
As Bailee points out, she’s “trying to be brave and I’m just going to talk out loud”.
“Baby loss,” she says “is still largely a grief that can’t be spoken and I want other mums to know they are not alone.”
Bailee deserves the whole community’s congratulations for what she has achieved and, more importantly, even more support to raise as much money as she can.
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