How a family is using a hashtag to handle grief

I walked into the Allenders’ home and was met by a bouncy 4-year-old named Ryder, who was more than excited to show me all around his living room.

Hanging on the wall, just below the television, were three beautiful family portraits.

“That’s me,” he said, pointing proudly to his smiling face. “This is Ruby, that’s Ronan, and this is Rory. He died.”

Rory graced the Allender family for 19 beautiful months before an accidental drowning took him from them last February. It was everyone’s nightmare scenario.

Mandy and her husband, along with their four children, had joined family members for a day together. As can so often be the case in a large family, each person assumed another was watching the baby, only to find out all were mistaken.

Mandy realized Rory was no longer beside them, and that her in-laws and older children couldn’t find him. Frantically, she began the search, looking to her husband, as both suddenly thought, “Oh no. The lake.”

Running down to the water’s edge, fearful, hopeful, they found their sweet boy floating and Mandy charged in after him, pulling him from the water, quickly beginning all life-saving efforts.

The paramedics arrived after Brock, Rory’s father, screamed for someone, anyone, to call. They stood over their son, wishing, crying, hoping he could hold on to his young, yet drifting life.

For the following 24 hours, Mandy and Brock held Rory as he faded in and out, gasped for breath, and ultimately passed from this life into the next.

And now, for the past nine months, the Allenders and their surviving children have been moving through this life, navigating what their world looks like without their baby — without Rory Kai.

“One of the things that happens when someone really important to you dies is first you struggle with your belief as to whether or not they were really here and whether they really mattered,” Mandy said, as her voice cracked and eyes began to well with tears. “Because they are just gone. And it happens so quickly that it feels like maybe they weren’t really here, and you might be the only person who remembers them.

“And so, you spend a lot of time and energy making sure everybody is going to remember them, whether it just be talking about them or saying their name.”

And it is with this idea in mind that Mandy, and countless others, have worked diligently to keep the memory of her baby alive after his death.

Mandy reached out to her growing Instagram audience, asking if anyone would be interested in sheets of stickers with Rory’s face on them after having been gifted some by an anonymous friend.

Initially wondering the merit behind them, she soon found them to be a source of strength. For $3 per sheet, friends were able to purchase stickers of Rory and post their location with the hashtag #ispyRoryKai.

The hashtag is now filled with over 1,000 sightings of Rory’s photo and other nuances that remind passersby of his life, and the importance it held for those who have come in contact with him, his story, or his stickers.

Through this effort, Mandy wants people to say Rory’s name out loud, to celebrate his life. She hopes people can join her as she practices what she calls “intentional grief”, the thought being to embrace the power of naming her sadness and of allowing it to be out in the open, knowing that this would be so much harder alone.

With new family photos having just recently been taken, the Allender family continues to commemorate Rory’s life and move on with theirs, with echoes of the Allenders’ final words to him of, “Thank you. I love you. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

Photos: Liz Logan, Mandy Allender, Amber Denae Photography 

This story was originally published November 29, 2017 at 8:37 PM with the headline "How a family is using a hashtag to handle grief."