My name is Jason Weitz. I run a local video production company called Left Mind Media, and I serve on the marketing and communications committee at Buzzy’s Bees. It has been a great honor and privilege to serve alongside the fantastic women (and men, but let’s face it, it’s mostly women) of Buzzy’s Bees and to help however I can. Let me tell you a little about why I decided to join the marketing committee and why I stay.
The reality is, there is only one factor that led me to join this committee…I was asked. Had Megan DeSalvo not extended an invitation, I likely would never have heard of Buzzy’s Bees, Give Grief a Voice, or any of the many other wonderful programs that Amanda Drews has cultivated over the years. The reason for that is simple – I have never experienced child loss. Nor has anyone I know, or know well enough to tell me about such a painful experience. It was that exact lack of experience that drew me in.
When I learned what the organization was about, and heard just a little of Amanda’s story, my heart broke. Not with sympathy, but with empathy. Imagining the total destruction of my soul that would come with losing my own son or daughter, the writhing agony and seemingly endless emptiness that must come with such a loss and still not being able to possibly comprehend what it is truly like…yet for Amanda to come through the other side wanting desperately to help as many people as possible who are experiencing the same thing…I knew I had to contribute somehow.
In all honesty, in most of the meetings, I am mostly silent. I am an expert in video, a little social media, not so much on the subject of loss. But I will go wherever the Buzzy’s team can use me, for as long as they’ll have me. Because none of us knows when or if or what tragedy will befall us. God willing, none so tragic as losing a child. But to have the kind of friends who understand such deep sorrow and have such a profound ability to come alongside and lift others out of the darkness is invaluable.