Our Story
Hi, we’re Mike and Candace.
Our Graham D’s Coffee Beans story is a culmination of many challenges, heartache, love, support, and community. The origin of Graham D’s began long before we came up with the idea of starting a Coffee Company. It started the moment we decided to grow our family. In the beginning, we navigated infertility for several years in hopes of building our family. And then, in 2018, we were blessed to find out that we would be expecting our first baby boy. We were so excited and beyond grateful for his arrival. It wasn’t long before we decided on a theme for his nursery; elephants, elephants, and more elephants! The first item we picked out was an elephant mobile for the crib. We were doing all the normal things preparing for our most exciting life-changing event yet. However, that life-changing event happened much sooner than we ever wanted. At 27 weeks into our son’s pregnancy, Candace could not feel him moving. At the hospital, our worst fears were confirmed. Our son no longer had a heartbeat. Our sweet baby boy, Graham Theodore Davies was stillborn on July 28th, 2018.
From the moment we found out Graham had died, our family and friends were there to listen, grieve with us, and support us in any way they could; for which we are forever grateful. We also found support in very unexpected ways. As we were preparing to go the hospital, we were introduced to a photographer from the "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep", a non profit organization that provides remembrance photography to parents experiencing the loss of a baby. He was ‘on call’ all night. And the moment Candace went into labor, he headed over to the hospital and arrived in time for the birth of our son and captured the very first moments of us with our precious boy. "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep" is one of many amazing non-profit organizations we have come to know that help families going through this loss. These images are our most treasured items and we are forever grateful for the photographer who rushed to the hospital in the midnight hour to capture lasting images of our son.
Over the next few months, we found solace in local support groups and learned very quickly that we were not alone. We met and continue to meet wonderful families that share similar stories. We also realized how freely we can share our story within our support community, but more often then not, we find ourselves holding back in our day to day lives. The most challenging question we get in normal conversation is: ‘How many kids do you have?’. Graham D’s was born from this feeling. Coffee roasting started as a hobby that we would share with family and friends. It became a healthy way to stay connected to our son, help us carry our grief, and a way to talk about our ‘whole’ family.
We established Graham D's Coffee Beans to honor our son by giving back to our community who so graciously helped us during our time of need. Our mission is to provide resources and support to families who have been impacted by pregnancy loss, stillbirth, and neonatal death, as well as fund further medical research to prevent these devastating outcomes. Although the origin of our story was filled with challenges and heartache, we are very fortunate that our story continues with endless support, love, and hope for the future.
