Brittany Spence, Founder and Executive Director of the Forrest Spence Fund: FACES of Nashville
Brittany Spence wasn’t sure she would survive the loss of her infant son. Ten years later, her experience has helped thousands through their hardest times. Meet our newest FACE of Nashville!
Brittany Spence has told the story hundreds of times, but even 10 years later, her voice can still catch on the details. Remembering the children alone, that’s what gets her. As she spent weeks watching over her newborn son Forrest while he fought a life-threatening infection, she noticed that many of the other young patients went hours or days without visitors. She recognized, even in her darkest time, that the ability to sit at her critically ill child’s bedside was a privilege many parents did not have.When Forrest died at 55 days old, Brittany and her husband David were determined to preserve their son’s memory with a fund to help others going through similar journeys. Beginning on that devastating week in 2007, the Forrest Spence Fund has since expanded from Memphis to now include Nashville and Chattanooga, and it has already provided more than 26,000 forms of non-medical assistance — from hot meals to utility payments to grief counseling — allowing families throughout Tennessee to focus on healing, even when the worst comes to pass.Now the Forrest Spence Fund’s Executive Director and the mother of three more children — Austin, 9; Miller, 7; and Maggie, 4 — Brittany’s days are filled to capacity. We sat down with Brittany to talk about the fund’s impact as well as how she sustains the hope and energy to fulfill this calling. Meet today’s FACE of Nashville, Brittany Spence.PinBrittany Spence, Founder and Executive Director of the Forrest Spence Fund
Where were you born and what was your upbringing like?
I was born in Hendersonville. I grew up the youngest, with two older brothers. I’m very competitive by nature — I constantly had to be as fast as my brothers, always kind of had that drive.
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After becoming a teacher and youth director, how did you make the transition to focus on helping parents?
We were thrust into parenthood not in a way that you ever want to be. All of a sudden our lives became living day in and day out in the hospital with our son and watching him really struggling to live. It was very, very difficult on me and my husband, David — who are married, who had two incomes, who had an incredible support system and who had a church that loved us.
Other people didn’t have that. My son was in bed 20, and beds 19 and 18 and 17 and 16 are kids who have no one. I’m sitting there reading to him or singing to him or praying over him or rubbing his head, and you look over and the 12-year-old is sitting there alone, and the 2-year-old is sitting there alone. And it crushed me. In that moment, I went, OK, I know I need to focus on him, but I can’t unsee what I’ve seen.
So yes, our experience made the fund happen, but really it was born out of watching other people and just thinking, These people need help; they need support. When you don’t have that, it kills families. We realized how much the child — the patient — needs their family, and that family needs somebody.
Pin“I sleep, to this day, with a blanket of Forrest’s. One of the recommendations [while Forrest was in the hospital] was that we sleep with a lovie and a blanket, so it has our smells on it. When he was in the hospital, I would start with one, and David would start with the other, and when I would get up to pump, I’d come back and we’d switch. And we did that every night for 55 nights, so when he died, I couldn’t stop. Ten years later, I still sleep with the same exact blanket of his. I can’t go without it. It’s a part of me,” says Brittany.
What did the first phase of the fund look like?
It was born the weekend he was dying. We knew he took a really bad turn. That Saturday night, 24 hours before he died, my husband looked at me and said, “I want to do something. I want to call it the Forrest Spence Fund.” And I looked at him and said, “I don’t think I can do it. I don’t know if I’m going to survive, much less do anything else.” And he said, “Well, we’re going to do it. I don’t know what it’s going to look like, but we’re going to do something.”
Forrest died on Sunday night, November 4, at a little past 10 p.m. And then the next day, we asked a guy from Hope Christian Community Foundation [in Memphis] if he would come and meet with us, and he came Monday morning to our home and told us what it would look like to start a donor-advised fund, so that’s how we started.
What are your personal goals? What drives you?
My kids are very close in age, and so it’s so important to me that we are tight. I think my words are, “You should treat your siblings better than your friends. Think through that — if your friend sat in your seat at the dinner table, would you karate-chop them? No. So treat your siblings like you would treat your friends.”
For me, I probably need to focus a little more on my own well-being and health. As a mother and as someone who does run a nonprofit, that can go by the wayside.
Pin“I went to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville for a teaching degree and met my husband literally the first week of school. I kept running into him again and again, which is kind of wild to do because it’s such a huge campus. I knew he was something special,” says Brittany of meeting David.
What are you most proud of?
We had a whole lot of people tell us that our marriage was going to fail, and we really chose each other. We really looked at each other and said, “This is going to suck, and it does suck, and you’re going to grieve one way, and I’m going to grieve another.” It was hard and took counseling, and it took a lot of being open with each other, but we’re stronger because of it. I think we’re both really proud of what the other has been able to accomplish.
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Taking some time to decompress is an important part of maintaining your ability to do this work. How do you take a break and recharge?
We have a farm that’s an hour away, and we go there. We have no internet there, and we’ll really disconnect. I read, I nap. My husband laughs that we walk in the door, and I get down on that couch and I’m almost asleep in a minute. People think that I am an extrovert, but I would call myself an outgoing introvert. I recharge 100% by myself. I have to have alone time. I need breathers.
Pin“People think that I am an extrovert, but I would call myself an outgoing introvert,” says Brittany. “I recharge 100% by myself.”
What’s your best advice?
To be kind and uplifting in your words and your actions and the way you treat other people.
What are three things you can’t live without?
ChapStick, earrings – you won’t see me without earrings – and a ponytail holder.
Thank you, Brittany, for sharing your story with us. If you would like to get involved with the Forrest Spence Fund or contribute to their holiday toy drive, visit forrestspencefund.org.Thank you to Micki Martin for today’s beautiful photos of Brittany.
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