Windmill sculptures at Lochore Meadows are a poignant reminder of babies who never got a chance of life.
And Janine Norris hopes they will bring as much comfort to bereaved parents as she took from a memorial near her home after her daughter Sylvie was born sleeping.
The sculptures were erected by the Fife branch of stillbirth and neonatal death charity Sands in a new area of reflection for families of babies who were stillborn or died shortly after birth.
Several of those families gathered on Sunday for the official opening in the country park near Lochgelly.
Janine, from Dunfermline, was among them with husband Callum and children Rory, 8, and Adara, 5.
It’s almost 10 years since Sylvie was stillborn in Victoria Hospital.
Janine said her loss ‘destroyed’ her and she barely left the house for months – the rare occasions she did to grieve at Sylvie’s memorial bench.
She said: “Sylvie doesn’t have a gravestone, she was cremated.
“We had a bench for her put in our local park and that was the only place that I felt peace and comfort.
“It was one of the only places I could go to that would get me out the house.
“I hope that these benches will have a similar feeling for other people who maybe don’t have a specific place to go and grieve.
“It is such a peaceful place, with a beautiful view across the loch.
“People can go and sit in a peaceful place, surrounded by nature and find some comfort and hopefully a little bit of healing.”
Janine is chair of Fife Sands, which commissioned Fife firms Iron Design by Rory and Leo Norris Design to create the sculptures and benches.
Windmills are already a special symbol for Fife Sands, as the charity holds an annual event where families create a field of small windmills in memory of their babies.
Snowdrops and dandelions, symbols used in bereavement rooms the charity has at Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy, are carved into the benches, along with the inscription ‘briefly known, forever loved’.
The facts:
- Every day 14 babies – more than 5,000 a year – are stillborn or die within their first few months in the UK
- 250,000 known pregnancies end in miscarriage each year
Sands has a phone helpline – 0808 164 3332 – email helpline helpline@sands.org.uk and more information is available on its website.
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