Jessica Colasurdo has assembled and given 25 boxes filled with a teddy bear, candle, notebook, handkerchief, handmade bracelet, necklace, seeds, and a small clay flowerpot to grieving parents.
The boxes are a little bit larger than a shoebox, tied tight with a black ribbon.
As a charge nurse at Valleywise Hospital, not only was it important for her to serve her patients, but to comfort them.
"I wish there wasn't a reason that we have to make these boxes,” Colasurdo said.
The effort is very personal to her. In 2018, Colasurdo was expecting her first child — a baby boy named "Ira."
"I got to about five months and we found out that he had a lot of anomalies that weren’t compatible with life. So, we never got to meet him,” Colasurdo said.
Two years after the loss of Ira, Colasurdo became pregnant with twin boys, Arlo, and Owen. But at five months, Colasurdo lost her twins.
Colasurdo says she would never wish her loss on anyone. To remember, she keeps her boys’ footprints stamped on a piece of paper and tattooed on her wrist.
She says making the baby bereavement boxes is a way to honor all three boys while she grieves.
Today, she assembles the bereavement boxes with her daughter, 1.5-year-old Ada, by her side.
"When I went through my experience, that was my biggest fear. That my babies would be forgotten,” Colasurdo said.
She said, "I'll never fully heal, but that it is possible to get back to where you are.”
Colasurdo creates all boxes with her own money or from donations.
