in memoriam | dear baby bird / by jami milne

babybird.jpg

Sunday, May 24

A Milne Family Celebration Service

In memoriam


Dear Baby Bird,

We need you to know that your short life was born onto the rafters of a home built from the foundation with love, kindness, support and generosity. 

Although death can be a time of darkness, you were born into a family that always looks to the bright side.

You were born into a loving home. A home that celebrates creativity. A home that relishes in what we need, but never embellishes in more than what is deemed enough.

Your life existed on a porch that also inhabited friendship, records of crooning icons, pillars of illuminated holiday lights and a welcoming surface for weary souls.

The home you leave is a loving home. A home where we value each others ideas and are supportive of any and all brave enough to share them. We’re non-judgmental of each other, regardless of age or wisdom for even the fresh ideas of the inexperienced are to be valued.

You were born into a family of producers, making and creating with courage and wild abandon. 

You, like perhaps us someday, left the world a better place than when you arrived. 

You leave a home that was as supportive of your growth and flight as we are of each other — stronger together but understanding of the importance of the individual, acknowledging the importance of our own thoughts, space and time. 

Lastly, we know our spirits will outlast our bodies just as we celebrate the spirits of those no longer with us: Ruth, Betty and Dot, Yayoi and Frida, Rosa and Amelia, artists and inventors and activists we celebrate, regardless of their earthly bodies.

Thank you for choosing our home to inhabit. Thank you for investing in our rafter to take flight. Thank you for taking your last breath beside the New York Times on our porch steps meant for friendships, records and weary souls. 

We honor your never ending flight, dear baby bird.