Say Their Name Day

Griffith parents, Chonnie and Joel Egan lost their son in November last year.

Tyler Blaine Egan was their fourth child who died at 33 weeks of pregnancy due to a very rare genetic condition.

Chonnie said she delved into all kinds of support trying to find a way to help heal so she could move forward after losing Tyler, fully aware that her life; her family’s life had forever been changed.

“Whilst trying to find support, I came across Say Their Name Day and I knew I needed to be involved somehow,” Chonnie said.

“I then came up with the idea of displaying personalised crochet hearts to honour babies and children lost in our local area.

I reached out to the parents of the Little Wings Support Group to see if others would be interested and received a lot of support.”

Her next step was to contact Pat Zandona from the Griffith Trauma Teddies Knitting Group and find out if they could get the hearts created.

“Pat has been absolutely amazing and has done so much more than just organising these hearts,” Chonnie said.

“She has really supported me in making this display a reality.

“Pat even organised for Dobija Print World to create personalised name tags for the hearts, and these have now kindly been donated.”

Chonnie’s husband and my father created the heart-shaped frame being used to display the hearts at Griffith Central.

“I was attracted to Say Their Name Day as I felt it was so important to educate and bring awareness to pregnancy, baby and child loss,” Chonnie said.

“As a newly bereaved parent, I think my biggest fear was that no one was ever going to say my son’s name for fear of upsetting me.

“It is a special day that can help to reduce the stigma around baby and child loss and give families a place to say the name of their little one.”

Every year in Australia, 110,000 families go through the trauma of miscarriage and 3000 more endure the heartbreaking loss of a baby through stillbirth or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS).

It’s a heartbreaking, yet very common situation that many hundreds of thousands of Australians have faced.

• Topics:

• Mental Health and Welbeing
• Health & Wellbeing