What Would You Do If It Happened To You?

Last week I received an email from my friend Steph at Babe's Rockin' Mami about a tragedy that struck a friend of her family's.  The email told a story about a young mama in her 20's that was on her way to pick up her 18 month old baby from daycare to find upon arriving that her precious angel had been struck by a car and killed.

I am no stranger to losing loved ones. At 18, I buried my best friend, at 23, my husband. I cannot fathom the loss of a child! When my husband passed, he did not have life insurance. The lack of insurance and the unexpected nature of his death left me without the funds to give him a burial or service.  At almost 12 and 10, I don't have life insurance on my children. I'm fairly certain most of us don't. I can't for a second figure out where I would come up with the money for proper arrangements if such a tragedy were to strike one of my children.

Steph is in the process of arranging an auction to raise money for her family friend to help with the cost of making final arrangements for her precious baby boy. While money won't help the gaping hole in her heart, it will help relieve some of the financial stess that comes along with this unexpected tragedy.

Below, Steph writes how you can help...

This is of course the busiest time of the year but it's also the giving season, the time where we make sure to think of others before ourselves. A family is grieving the loss of their son in a horrific accident. Read more here and here. Most of us can't even imagine the pain this family is experiencing not to mention the financial strain. It's my Christmas wish to be able to help this family, who are also friends of mine, to help take away something on their minds at a time that's focused on famil and love and happiness.

I am still trying hard to get some products donated as incentive to donate. I know that a child's death is sad and isn't like a baby with a disease or curing something but it's still just as important. If your son or daughter was killed in an accident what would you do? Every dollar you donate will be one entry into the drawing for prizes. I will get an email with your info and the amount you've donated and will email you back to confirm and give you your drawing numbers. When the auction ends, tentatively on the 15th of January, possibly the 31st, I will go through and random.org each item with them numbers to pick a winner. I hope to have more details on the auction in the next few days as more sponors get back in touch, between the weekend and weather people are taking longer to get back in touch. Decide to give up your morning coffee to Riley for a day and you give $5 to a deserving family and get five entries to win some cool stuff!

The donations we have to auction off right now are:
$10 Gift Card to Bath & Body Works
$25 Gift Code to Steph's Rockin Bakery$50 Gift Code to PinkCherry.com

You can also help by SPREADING THE WORD! I have been surprised that not many people have taken an interest but I'm hoping that it's just because the weekend was busy and you've been busy shopping. I know my readers would do anything they could to help!

Babe and Riley were just a month apart, Sandra and I shared pregnancy stories, ultrasounds, fears and firsts. It always seemed like if one boy was doing something the other was right behind him or had been doing it. Both boys loving, sweet, funny little boys whoe changed both of us for the better. I see so much of me in her as a mother. The rest of her firsts with Riley are gone now and as a mother and a friend of Sandra I want to do everything I can to help and I know that you will too. Our blog family can help this family with this burden so that they have one less thing to worry about in the recovery from the death of Riley. Feel free to email me any questions that you may have!

The Rockin' Bakery will be donating 25% off it's profits to The Riley Memorial! We can't do much but we can organize this raffle, donation drive and donate the profits to it.

If you write a post for The Riley Memorial please link it up at this link so that when Sandra is feeling low she can see all the love that we are sending her and her family!