By Tanya Steele
This Christmas the Tree of Souls continues to bring together parents of bereaved children, offering an annual tribute, solace and community for their children who have passed away.
A vigil was held at the Tree of Souls on Saturday 14 of November from at the Tecoma Uniting Church, bringing together those who have experienced the pain of losing a child.
Christmas brings a surge of emotions with it, often highlighting love between families with moments that can be treasured forever.
The vigil will offer saw a crowd gather as a community, for people to support each other and to remember and honour their children and Upwey local and co-founder of the tree project Rineke Leigh said around 50 people attended this year.
“Feedback has been one of heartfelt gratitude for the tree,” she said.
“Parents feel their kids are being honoured- people made new connections and new friends.”
At the vigil strangers were hugging and crying with each other as well as being able to freely talk about their children, their grief and the sense of isolation they felt before coming together with others who Ms Leigh said ‘just get it’.
“It’s a beautiful thing to be able to give something to bereaved parents. The project has expanded across Australia this year and organisers are inviting others to host their own tree,” she said.
“It creates a conversation and connection.”
The Tree of Souls project involves parents giving an image of their child which is then turned into a bauble and placed on the tree, an act of remembrance and solace.
Not everyone can be with the people they love at this time of year and Ms Leigh said the project has grown from being held in her own garden in 2022 to a much larger endeavour at the tree at Tecoma Uniting Church gardens in Tecoma.
“The church, the church community and the community gardens have been so supportive,” said Ms Leigh.
Ms Leigh lost her eldest son Chris to a skateboarding accident in Monbulk when he was 24 in 2021.
“The second Christmas after he passed, I wasn’t looking forward to Christmas and was wanting, and needed to give him something for Christmas – that was part of my grief,” she said.
“It’s very cathartic for me and it is my way of giving Chris a gift,” she said.
Ms Leigh said a major part of the project enables parents, family and friends to gather, hold vigil and remember a child who they have lost.
“One of our biggest things is people forget and we want to be able to remember our children,” she said.
The project has taken off there is a Tree of Souls in Perth for the first time, which held their own vigil on Sunday 15 November.
Ms Leigh said she attended a grief conference in the US earlier this year and met a person named Merle from Bassendean in Perth.
“She stepped up and started a tree in Perth,” said Ms Leigh.
Ms Leigh said Tree of Souls has expanded from a social media presence to a dedicated website and also has a board on display in the garden and a dedicated list of resources for people who happen to walk by the tree.
“We have been kindly donated a frame board and now also have one with a QR code that people can scan and it’ll take them directly to the resource page,” she said.
“If people do feel challenged or triggered they can use that, it can be a bit overwhelming to just walk around and see all these images and then recognise that none of them are earthside anymore.”
This year the Melbourne Tree helf over 350 baubles on it and the Perth one around 70.
Ms Leigh said some goals for 2025 include developing relationships with hospitals, paediatric palliative care, and organisations offering grief support so they can make Tree Of Souls available to the parents they work with.
“There is also a goal to do some fundraising to help with ongoing cost so the baubles can remain free to parents and to have trees available in more states next year,” she said.
