Tom & Francie have Hannah seeds blooming in their garden in Little Falls, MN.
Thanks Tom & Francie!!
Tom & Francie have Hannah seeds blooming in their garden in Little Falls, MN.
Thanks Tom & Francie!!
Lake Michigan, a view from the bluff.
Beginning the summer before Hannah’s second birthday, and every summer since, the Metzlers joined their extended family (the Kaveny, maternal grandmother side) for a week in South Haven/St. Joseph, Michigan. Hannah loved spending time with cousins, aunts & uncles and her Nonna, and she especially LOVED swimming in Lake Michigan.
Only steps to the lake!
The setting was double-edged, though. To enjoy the scenic view from the house on the bluff, it meant walking down (and UP!) 224 steps to get to the beach. Needless to say, you learned to remember your water bottles and towels, or it meant missing valuable swim time hiking back up those steps. During Hannah’s last summer at the lake, she insisted that she would walk down & up those 224 steps despite having lost much of her balance as well as function in her right leg. With a bit of parental spotting, but mostly on her own, she climbed those steps twice over the course of the week, and she thoroughly enjoyed her newfound buoyancy in the water, a welcomed respite from her increasing struggles with controlling her body.
This summer (2015), her blue ribbon was still hanging fast to a branch on the bluff, and we scattered some seeds where she romped and played, near her favorite tree and looking out over the water she loved.
We miss you, Hannah, but your spirit lingers in this special place.
Learn more & See Hannah’s Seed Map HERE!
Cousins who’d prefer playing to posing.
Add a grandmother Nonna to the mix every now & then to keep the kids in line.
A blue ribbon tied to a branch on the bluff.
A peaceful place.
The long walk home.
Students from Fairport, NY with our foremen in Ollantaytambo holding the seeds after we finished our service project.
Hello this is Kate Fuess! For the past two weeks a group of about twenty five kids and two teachers from Fairport were traveling around Peru. I carried the seeds around in my backpack and the first place we could plant them was in Ollantaytambo, a small town outside of Cusco. Here we did our service project, which was putting in a new irrigation system for an even smaller village inside of Ollantaytambo. Everyone was given a packet of seeds and one of the foremen in charge of our project was a gardener and said he would be able to plant the seeds in honor of Hannah around other parts of the country, so the seeds will continue to be scattered in beautiful gardens around Peru.
Kate Fuess holding seed packets at Machu Picchu
I saved a packet because I had one more place in mind for the seeds. I didn’t think there would be a more perfect place to put seeds than Machu Picchu. It’s the most beautiful place I have ever been to and I knew it would be the best place for the seeds. My good friend Sophie Sureau and I shared the last packet of seeds to spread over the mountains. It was a wonderful moment to spread the seeds in such a beautiful location.
Thank you for letting me spread these seeds for Hannah, I am truly honored be have been part of this movement.
Sophie Sureau & Kate Fuess holding seeds over the side of the mountain right before planting them.
Just returned from Europe and blessed to have been able to spread Hannah’s Forgot Me Not seeds in Melk, Austria and in Passau and Cologne, Germany. Her spirit is spreading worldwide!
We’re a bit late with this, but here is Hannah’s good friend, Dierdre, scattering seeds in summer 2014 at Camp Stella Maris, where they both went to summer camp.
Dierdre also orchestrated a Bald for Bucks event in 2015 with Mercy and McQuaid high schools, raising some serious $$$ for Teens Living with Cancer and others.
A HUGE thank you, Dee!!
Donna (Hannah’s Nonna), Monica & Madeleine Metzler, and Maureen & Eileen McKeough took a trip to the Pacific Northwest in June 2015, scattering seeds in Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. And they may have dropped more along the way.
Here’s the first batch from right outside Seattle’s Baroness Hotel:
Erin & Kaitlyn Nannen found a beautiful spot for seeds during their Jamaica trip. (If you came looking for their brother, Jake, you can find him in an earlier post planting seeds at the Eiffel Tower!)
Thanks Erin and Kaitlin!
Nancy had a conference in San Diego in April 2015, so she went for work obligations, and Mike tagged along to play, visiting Balboa Park and Old Town and a few other spots.
While in Old Town, the “birthplace” of California, Mike trekked up some serious hills at Presidio Park to find the Serra Museum, which sits on the site where Father Junipero Serra established the first California mission and Presidio.
Given its panoramic views of San Diego and the Pacific Ocean, Hannah would have loved sitting atop this hill, so it seems the perfect place for some seeds.
Our good friend (former neighbor & dog-walking buddy), Paul Roche, travels a lot for work. He is a true “road warrior.” One business trip took him to the Twin Cities in Minnesota, and he took it upon himself to drive 90 extra miles to visit the farm where Hannah grew up. He wanted to get a sense of her past and scatter some seeds. When he arrived, he found the treehouse where she played (and were she’s standing in the photo on this website’s homepage)…. He also found some furry friends, which is par for the course on the farm.
Thanks, Paul, for going the extra mile(s)!!
Paul & his new pal.
A helping hand paw.
“I thought I should let you know that I planted Hannah’s forget-me-nots this morning. I put them in a grove of trees in a park by the Thames. I know they don’t look like much now, but in the fall they were like fire. I walk that path everyday, so I’ll be able to watch the flowers grow and remember Hannah. I would give anything to go to the Crush Cancer concert, but alas, there is an ocean preventing that possibility. I miss her.”
Thanks Constance. We miss her, too….
Learn more & see the map HERE.
Getting closer….
Ribbon wrapped. Now, where are those seeds?
A perfect clearing where the blue will come through…