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Threads of Love brings comfort, dignity to grieving parents
By DAWN HINSHAW
One loves to sew but said she was too disorganized to form a new group.
The other knew a lot of women through her church but didn’t think she had the skill to make tiny clothing.
Between them, Sally Gripkey and Rose Anne Livingston — grandmothers and longtime friends — launched an organization that has helped hundreds of Midlands families cope with miscarriage, stillbirth or the death of a newborn.
Once a month the women get together at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Chapin to sew together. Besides burial clothing, they make sock dolls, infant vests, hats, blankets and even positioning pillows. Livingston delivers the items to Palmetto Richland, Baptist and Lexington Hospitals once a month. Rose Anne Livingston and a group of women belong to the local chapter of Threads of Love. The members make burial clothes for infants as well as clothes for premature babies and delivers them to local hospitals.
The women in their group, Threads of Love, make delicate white gowns, caps and blankets used as burial shrouds.
“Nobody goes to the hospital expecting to go home without a baby,” Livingston said, “so most people aren’t prepared for burials.”
The clothing has taken the place of blue, plastic bed pads that, before, wrapped the remains given to grieving mothers.
“They are babies. They aren’t just things, you know?” said Gripkey, 73, a retired respiratory therapist who knows her way around hospitals. The volunteers rarely meet the people who receive their handmade gifts. Still, they can comprehend the cruel pain.
In addition to sewing at their homes, a core group of seven to 10 members meets once a month at Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church in Chapin. They form an assembly line to fill another need for local hospitals: fleece-covered pillows, no bigger than an eyeglass case, that nurses use to position premature or sick babies safely in their heated bassinets.
“We can’t keep up,” said Livingston, 75, a retired real estate broker who became an adept volunteer as an Army wife, moving from post to post. Gripkey first read about Threads of Love, which began in Louisiana, in a sewing magazine. For a couple of years, she made gowns on her own.
In 2004, she approached her friend Livingston about organizing a chapter here. After a lukewarm reception by a couple of organizations, the two appeared before the Catholic women’s group at Our Lady of the Lake, where Livingston is a member.
Gripkey recalled: “One of the ladies just looked at everybody and she said, ‘Y’all, how can we not do this?’ And I thought, ‘I’ve hit the jackpot. A smart woman.’”
Early on, Threads of Love got a $350 donation from the church. Since then, it has been self-sustaining, with occasional donations from families touched by their kindness. “We’ve never had to have a fundraiser,” Livingston said.
She buys fabric on sale. A group from Myrtle Beach donates lace. Invariably, the seamstresses spend their own money on supplies, making what Livingston estimated is 2,500 baby items a year.
The largest burial gown they make is 24 inches long. The smallest is 5 inches; it can lie flat in a sandwich bag.
Once a month, Livingston delivers a variety of sizes to three local hospitals — Lexington Medical Center, Palmetto Health Richland and Palmetto Health Baptist. The nurses are free to give them out as needed.
Mandy Burch and her husband, Gary, lost a baby, their first, a year ago.
Because the baby was so small, just 8.5 ounces at 20 weeks, Burch said, it would have been impossible to find a gown to fit.
“One of the nurses came and picked something for Jewel — that’s what we had named her,” Burch said.
“It means a lot when you’re going through such a difficult time,” she said. “You have so much on your mind.”
Since then, the Burches had a little boy, Tyler.
At Lexington Medical Center, labor and delivery nurse Donna Hinton said Threads of Love is part of the grieving process when pregnancy ends in miscarriage or death. “The families that have chosen not to hold or see the babies don’t do as well,” Hinton said.
Livingston said she mourned when her daughter-in-law miscarried seven weeks into one of her pregnancies.
Remembering, her eyes filled with tears. “I had already bonded with that baby,” she said.
For Gripkey, a telephone conversation with a young man who called her home, seeking comfort, validated Threads of Love.
“He said, ‘My baby died.’
“He said, ‘It wasn’t really a baby.’
“And I said, ‘What do you mean?’
“He said, ‘Well, it wasn’t but about a pound or so.’
“And I said, ‘Yes, that’s a baby … no matter how big or how small.’
“He was sitting on the phone, crying, because I said that.
“And crying because I said, ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll call the hospital to have an outfit for your baby to be buried in.’”
To contribute, make checks payable to Threads of Love and send to 216 Patio Place, Columbia, SC 29212, or call (803) 732-7459.
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