The sight is an unusual one: dozens of men wearing tuxedos, holding small wooden boxes, marching forward. It's an unusual sight for a heartbreaking reason: no one else cared.
Until Elissa Davey came around, there weren't many people interested in honoring the lives of the hundreds of abandoned children that come into this world and leave without anyone to mourn them.
"People ask me how I could bury a baby, it's like the hardest thing in the whole wide world. My answer right back to 'em is, how can I not?" Elissa says.
For the past 17 years, Elissa has been providing dignified and beautiful memorials for 298 children abandoned and unidentified. Each child is buried in a cemetery called the Garden of Innocence, they're each given a monument, a name, and a funeral procession to honor them. Like the couple who sews "Angel Gowns" for deceased premies, Elissa is doing heavy but necessary work.
"We can say we've touched this child and this child has touched our hearts," she says of the dozens of strangers who come out to each ceremony to remember children they never knew.
The entire project is completely bittersweet. Yet, it is a reminder that we should cherish the family that we have — they are the ones who keep us alive when we are long gone.
For those who aren't as lucky, there's Elissa Davey and the Garden of Innocence project.
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