Brooklyn’s Story
When I found Walk With You, I was in the darkest, most helpless place I had ever been. I had just lost my daughter Brooklyn after only 5 days of life, and the weight of that grief felt impossible to carry. I was searching for someone, anyone, who understood the depth of what I was feeling. I wasn’t even sure what kind of help I needed beyond the financial burden we were suddenly facing. In my late-night scrolling, I came across a post from GoodGriefs that mentioned Walk With You, and I felt something shift. I immediately looked deeper into who they were, and I knew I had found a lifeline. I reached out that same day, and within hours, Kylie personally connected with me. We set a time to talk, and for the first time since Brooklyn passed, I felt like I wasn’t entirely alone.
Walk With You supported me in ways I didn’t even know I needed. They connected me with other grieving mothers - women who truly understood what it meant to carry love and loss in the same breath. They helped me with the unimaginable task of creating a headstone for my daughter Brooklyn, something I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around emotionally or financially. They also guided my family and friends in how to support me during a time when words often failed. One of the most touching gifts was a photo they had printed of Brooklyn from Mother of Wilde that now holds a sacred place in my heart and home. Even the stickers they created with her name brought a closeness to her that’s hard to explain, but it made me feel like she was real to others, not just to me.
I’ll never forget my first conversation with Kylie. She gently asked if I wanted to send photos of Brooklyn and it was the first time someone actually wanted to see my baby. That meant everything. I had felt so isolated, so robbed of moments most parents get to experience. I never saw my daughter’s eyes open, and in one of the photos I sent, Kylie said, “Look at those lashes.” I cried because I hadn’t even noticed them. She saw Brooklyn in a way I longed for others to see her. Walk With You made me feel seen, and they made my daughter feel seen. Through them, I was connected with another mom who had experienced a similar loss, and she’s become one of the greatest blessings in this journey. Brooklyn’s life may have been short, but her impact continues. Walk With You has been a powerful part of keeping her light alive.
I want others to know that Brooklyn Zoe was, and always will be, the greatest gift of my life. Though her time here was painfully short, just five days, she changed me in every possible way. She made me a mother. She taught me how deeply one can love, how fiercely one can hope, and how to find beauty even in heartbreak. I fought so hard to bring her into this world through years of infertility, IVF, and countless prayers, which made the grief of losing her even heavier to carry. But Brooklyn was born a fighter, and she passed that spirit on to me. It’s because of her that I still have fight left in me: to live, to love, and to try again - even as the world calls me “advanced maternal age.” Brooklyn gave me the courage to believe in the possibility of a sibling for her and the strength to keep building the family we dreamed of.
I’m forever grateful for the support I received through Walk With You, because in the moments I felt most unseen and silenced in my grief, they reminded me that Brooklyn mattered and that I mattered. They helped bring her name into spaces where she felt real to others, not just to me. That kind of validation is something every grieving parent longs for. My daughter may not be in my arms, but she lives in my heart and now, through the kindness of others, in the hearts of many.
