ORLANDO, Fla. – Noelle Moore’s daughter had blue eyes.
She weighed almost 8 pounds, had every finger and toe in place and sported a full head of hair.
Recommended Videos
She’s also the reason her mother created The Finley Project, a program founded in 2013 to help grieving moms, like herself, deal with the loss of an infant under the age of 1.
[TRENDING: World’s largest cruise ship to set sail from Port Canaveral | Become a News 6 Insider (it’s free!)]
It was the same year Finley, who the project is named after, passed away at 1-month-old after suffering complications caused by medical malpractice during birth.
“I try to just carry her legacy and will continue to until the day I’m no longer here,” she said. “But she is my purpose for helping other people.”
Moore explained “the gap between the hospital and the home” following Finley’s death inspired her to create resources for women dealing with this type of loss.
“I just felt like it wasn’t OK to have women be walking out of hospitals all over our community without help,” Moore said.
The highly sought after Finley Project, which started in Central Florida but has since exploded nationwide, caters to the physical and emotional needs of mothers in mourning through a seven-step program.
This program continues as we see tragic infant deaths in car crashes across Central Florida, including the Osceola County turnpike accident that left a 1-month-old boy dead earlier this month.
Moore and her team focus on providing aid, nourishment, cleaning services, restoration, fellowship, counseling and support, helping with everything from funeral arrangements to groceries to mental health outreach.
It’s Maslow’s hierarchy for the grieving mother.
“If a mom’s needs are not met ... then they’re less inclined to get the help that they need,” she said. “There’s just sometimes barriers to getting the help. And a lot of that’s the basic needs, but also it’s financial. And so we try to step in to eliminate those barriers so that people can get back into society, get back to working, get back to being, you know, a wife or daughter or, you know, community leader.”
Over the years, Moore’s been amazed by the resilience she’s witnessed in those forever marked and changed by grief.
She’s built a community for those who feel lost in a world that no longer looks the same, underlining the impact her volunteers make when they mentor fellow mourning mothers.
The team gives these women a roadmap, one Moore could’ve used when encountering her own fork in the road.
“It was either I’m going to turn to unhealthy things and be angry and mad, or I was going to choose to make meaning out of it,” she said. “ ... What has God called me to do and that’s to walk with women through the greatest, like, most horrific time of their life and bring them out the other side.”
She recalled one of the most powerful phrases somebody said to her following the death of her daughter: “We will get through this together.”
She is, in turn, paying it forward by ensuring none of the women under her care walk through the wake of loss alone. Part of this process includes nurturing conversations about grief.
“Grief becomes the elephant in the room and I think the greatest gift that somebody can give to us is just to approach it head-on,” she told me. “It’s OK to say, ‘I don’t even know what to say.’”
The holidays are especially hard for homes made more empty by the death of loved ones.
“Have a plan, even if that plan is to, you know, to watch movies with friends or to go for a walk or whatever ... The anticipation is much worse than the day itself,” Moore said. “And I also encourage people just to start new traditions ... try something different just to see how it feels.”
Moore’s biggest takeaway from dealing with the unimaginable? There’s still hope.
“There’s hope for something better. There’s hope that you can make it. There’s hope that you can honor your child by continuing on,” Moore said. “I didn’t feel like I had that when she died. So for us, we want to be that symbol of hope for moms.”
While the program is currently full, spots for mothers in need of support will open back up in January 2022.
Those interested in volunteering or donating can visit The Finley Project website by clicking here.