Not Christmas Past, Not Christmas Future, but Christmas PRESENT

Life has been crazy for me the last couple months.  I'm busier than I want to be professionally and personally, but life has a way of moving on autopilot sometimes despite our best intentions.  Over Thanksgiving, I had an appellate brief that was due the following week, so those few days off were spent researching and writing, and taking a brief break for dinner.  After Thanksgiving, there wasn't much of a reprieve:  both kids were in the Nutcracker, and then there was stuff at school and art projects for the school fundraiser, and end of year board meetings...well, you get the picture.  Despite all the hectic evenings and long nights, the one thing I didn't get caught up in was the materialism of the holiday.  Thank goodness for my Church to remind me about the true meaning of Christmas.

Despite the beautiful message of Christmas, it can be a hard time for so many.  Not just because it is hectic and crazy, but also because it is a sentimental time when we remember Christmases Past, and think back on family we have lost that aren't with us in body (but are always with us in spirit!).  The music, the decorations, even decorating the Christmas tree, with ornaments handmade or purchased on trips or received as gifts, maybe some that adorned the trees of parents or grandparents, all contribute to the nostalgia and hearkening back to Christmases we remember from our childhood or celebrations we had with loved ones in the past.

Additionally, we often think about what we will do next year to make the next Christmas better, or if Christmas didn't go the way we think it should this year, we start planning for next year.  Maybe we think about taking a trip at Christmas, or spending time with family who are far away, and we begin planning for next year almost as soon as the food has been eaten and the decorations taken down.

But perhaps, as I was reminded recently when a good friend suddenly and unexpectedly lost her mother, maybe the best Christmas is the one we have now...not the one from last year, or twenty years ago, or even the one we hope for next year.  Maybe we need to stay in the moment and celebrate those who are with us in the here and now.  When Lydia was dying, a good friend reminded me that scripture tells us "to let the dead bury the dead".  I think this means we have to focus on the living, and what we have now.  We can certainly grieve those who aren't with us, and mourn that loss, as it is a very real loss, but we also can't lose sight of what we have in front of us:  friends, family, food, a home....but most importantly:  this moment!  A moment you will never get to live again....just soaking up and enjoying what is here, what is present, and what is impermanent.  None of us know what the future holds, but what we can do is live in the present, understanding that the future is not guaranteed.  Live in the moment:  live, laugh, love, and don't just give presents but give the best present you can give those in your life:  your PRESENCE.

May you all have a blessed Christmas and enjoy each moment.

Peace,
The Miyashitas
Monica, Mark, Max, Sarah-Grace, and  ^^Lydia^^
Daisy, Grizabella, Agatha and Weasley (the cats)

Why Baseball is Like Life....

Why Baseball is Like Life

The 2017 Cleveland Indians’ baseball season left me feeling blue, and a bit let down.  This year the Tribe took us to the heights of victory and celebration, and then dropped us into the pit of misery.  To many, it was inconceivable that such a storied season would end with such a thunk.  Or maybe it’s best to say it was one of those moments in Cleveland sports we’ve come to believe is inevitable:  defeat and the perennial chant of “Wait until next year”.  But to me, baseball is like life.  The drama, the characters, the rules of the game, the analytics, the unexpected, the terminology, all apply to life as well.

Let’s start with the characters in the drama.  There’s something about baseball that brings out downright quirky characters.  Perhaps it’s the long season and the 162 games, or the day in day out grind, that all conspire to make the players superstitious, ritualistic and prone to eccentricities. Take Cleveland Indians’ manager Terry “Tito” Francona who, during the August-September 22 game win streak refused to take a call from a long time friend because that friend’s calls so often preceded an upcoming loss, he didn’t want to jinx things.  Or, last year Mike Napoli restarted the film Major League’s scene of sacrificing a chicken to the baseball god Jobu (don’t worry: no real chickens were harmed in the ritual!).  Maybe it’s the prayers that are said by Francisco Lindor (looks like the Hail Mary to this Catholic), while he stands respectfully during the National Anthem.  The characters in baseball are diverse too, from the many Hispanic players on various teams, to African American players, Caucasians, Asians, Adoptees like Aaron Judge and Rob Refsnyder, to German ballet descendent,  Max Kepler...the teams are diverse in terms of race, religion, geography and culture. The quirky characters, the superstitious, eccentric  behaviors and diversity all reveal a cross section of real people we know and/or grew up with in life.

Then there are the rules and terminology of the game.  Can you think of any better idea than the home run and the metaphors of reaching first, second, and third base?  How many times do we describe a situation as only reaching first base, or someone having three strikes and they’re out?  In California, the three strikes and you’re out idea was even codified into California statutory law.  I bet all American parents have one time or another, told their kids that they have one strike left before they are “out”.  But this is also like life because while we do strike out, right around the corner is another “at bat”.  Another chance.  

How about the term “curve ball”?  If life throws you one, you never saw it coming.  How about the idea of the sacrifice fly or bunt?  I once heard a priest give an entire homily on the sacrifice fly. The idea was that the sacrifice fly is a perfect metaphor for how we should approach life: we should lay down our lives for the benefit of others for the betterment of the common good (the team).  There are errors, passed balls, balks, and other terms that are easily translatable into life.  An error means that the other person can’t benefit by earning a run batted in...which is about fairness.  A passed ball means you let an opportunity to catch something slide right past you, and you are held accountable.  If you balk at something, you fail to go full force and refuse to commit but if you fooled someone else into thinking you were going to commit, shame on you.

Baseball is a game of analytics.  I should know, as I am one of those people who enjoys keeping score as a bit of a hobby. You can kind of guess what is going to happen based on the law of probability.  If a scouting report says a hitter will chase a fast ball but can’t hit a curve ball for anything, the likelihood is that the hitter will probably do exactly that.  But kind of like life, every once in awhile something funny happens, and the hitter doesn’t chase, and then gets a pitch he likes and hits it to Lake Erie.  This suggests that while life is somewhat fixed by our aptitudes and attitude, it isn’t a done deal.  

And finally, baseball is a game of endurance and fortitude.  It tests you in ways you can’t imagine.  It also is a game of luck...wind blowing into the stadium, wind blowing out, humidity, the dirt on the warning track, the grass on the field...all these variables mean that timing is everything.  Just like in life, a 22 game winning streak, if started too soon, may mean that the streak may not stick around for the playoffs.  

And as the baseball season comes to a close, and Tom Hamilton has now signed off until Spring Training, I’m reminded that in baseball, just like in life, we all get a fresh start, with no mistakes in it.  After all, it’s only 164 days until Opening Day!  Go Tribe!

Copyright Protected/Owned By Monica L. Miyashita, Esq.

The Interior Life

I've given lots of thought recently about what it means to have an interior life.  Part of the reason I have thought about this topic is because I am involved in planning a women's retreat for our church in which this is a predominant theme.  I've given it much thought because it has made me think about why I think the way I do, why I value certain things and how this all fits into the bigger picture of life.  

To me, an interior life has three understandings .  The first means a life without care for what others think but is instead a life in which one is only focused on how one perceives the world.  In this rather solipsistic aspect, one measures success not by any outward metric but by one's own definitions and measures, if one measures success at all, as that is not really a term that has much relevance for the interior life.  When I think about profound influences in my life, my college experience at Hiram looms large.  One of the reasons I chose Hiram is that it was in the middle of nowhere; a beautiful isolated campus in a sleepy little village was exactly what I envisioned when I was 17 and looking at schools. It fit my definition of an ideal academic atmosphere:  no distractions; a total learning environment filled with natural beauty; and time to sit under a tree and read Greek plays or English Lit or maybe even a little Sartre. It was a moment in time to spend crafting the interior life.  A moment in time that would not come around again.  I reveled in that atmosphere and took double the number of courses allotted so I could drink in every bit of knowledge and thought I could get my hands on.  College wasn't about football or anything other than soaking up every bit of academic atmosphere I could. As my blog title indicates, this season of my life was when my life of quiet examination began, albeit life hasn't always been quiet in the literal sense.

I also think interior life refers to our view of the world.  I enjoy being around people, but I also think we often need time to ourselves to contemplate and think things through.  Perhaps at no point is the need for solace more elusive than in the world of constant connectedness,  yet true interconnectedness eludes us. I remember one of the professors at Hiram who was married to another professor who sang in the choir with me.  She would talk about what she liked to do:  she enjoyed knitting and gardening and music and reading and had read and read and read and was one of the most beautifully kind people I have ever known.  She had traveled and had interests in food and films and we had such interesting conversations.  Then there was my vocal music teacher.  He was a gay African American musician from Boston and loved to tease me about my Ohio accent.  We had wonderful conversations about films and music and food and travels.  He lived in a simple apartment in Hiram but his interior life was as deep as the ocean.  My history professors were equally fascinating.  Stacks of books in their offices, things they were writing or working on.  They knew something about darn near everything.  It was so fun to sit in their office in the Victorian house that housed the history department or drink tea out of the Blue Willow tea set in front of the fire in the parlor talking about Churchill.  I wanted to have this kind of life where knowledge made the world go round and no additional stimuli was needed.  A fascinating interior life: one not dependent on others but only on what one found interesting,  interested me.  

And last but not least, an interior life is a deeply spiritual life. The phrase "Spiritual but not religious" has become a bugaboo phrase for many in religious traditions because it implies that one can be spiritual without a church and without in some cases much or any specificity about God.  I think one of the reasons studies show this part of the population growing is because people are searching for an interior life, a life of deep meaning and they often perceive that the church or a formal religious structure doesn't provide that deeper meaning. In some cases that's true.  Rigid orthodoxy sometimes prevents people from seeing the beauty of faith traditions or the beauty of faith  in those who don't conform.  Sometimes we get so caught up in form,  we lose substance.  Part of the trick here may be to achieve equipoise between these two aspects:  finding the balance between form and substance is not easy.  But we need to err on the side of substance in order not to alienate those who deeply need to be able to float like a feather on the breath of God.

I think the  spiritual component of the interior life has three purposes:  1.  To help sustain us in periods of great tumult in our lives; 2.  To help us discern how to help others when they face great tumult in their lives; and 3. To bring us into a closer and deeper relationship with God so we can do 1. and 2. We need to have silence and stillness in order to discern what we are to do with our lives and how God wants us to use our talents for the greater good of helping others, not to line our own pockets or save for college.   How do we achieve this interior life?  My next post will address the topic of silence.  Stay tuned.

Seeing God in All Things

Today is the Feast of the Assumption, which is the commemoration of the day Mary was taken up into heaven.  I'm sitting here writing this entry at Adoration in the early morning hours in front of the blessed sacrament. For those of you who aren't Catholic, Adoration is a time when Catholics pray or sit in contemplation and Adoration in front of a consecrated host which is held in a Monstrance.  Our belief is that this is the real presence of Christ. I'm sitting here today on the 9th Anniversary of the day Lydia was diagnosed with leukemia.  So today is a day full of meaning and memories and a mixture of sadness and also celebration.  It is a day of sadness because it is the day my life and the life of my family, and in particular Lydia, was forever changed.  It's also a day my life was transformed.  As I've written before it is a day of a distinct "before and after"....there are all the events of my life from childhood to that moment and then there is everything "after"....it was a crossing of the Rubicon moment in life...a no going back, transformative event.  But today is also one of celebration because as a Feast Day it is a celebration of the moment Mary became the Queen of Heaven.

Ever since Lydia became ill I have identified strongly with Mary.  I saw a parallel in the fact that Mary was a mother who watched her child suffer and later die.  I felt that only a mother who lost a living breathing child could understand another mother's pain.  There is a part of the Rosary prayer in which one recites that to Mary we send our prayers, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears. That particular line of the prayer did and does still make so much sense to me.  But the celebration of the Feast of Assumption tells us something important about Mary beyond my identification of her as the penultimate mother.  It tells me, as St Ignatius observed, to see God in all things. Let me explain.

When I said I identified with Mary as a mother who watched her child die, its important to note that Mary's story doesn't stop at the foot of the cross.  Mary's story goes on to the resurrection and ultimately her Assumption into heaven and so, while watching her son suffer torture and then death, her story, like Christ's is one of transformation in which something horrible in the form of Christ's death became the glory of resurrection.  And so we see that God was there with Jesus in his suffering in the cross.  He didn't cause it...humans did that....but he allowed it because ultimately, the transformation of something evil into something good can happen when we allow ourselves to see God's presence in all things.  Through Mary's journey, from her acceptance of God's will right through to the crucifixion and resurrection of her son, God's presence transforms something bad into something good if we let that happen.  Mary is the example of opening herself up to God and allowing Him to use her, and by extension others, to transform the events around us...... if we don't give up the ship and we stay the course.  

Going back to Lydia, I said that what happened with Lydia was a transformative event.  While God didn't cause Lydia's leukemia, he did allow it because he allows us as humans to make bad choices that do things like pollute the environment or take actions that cause disease, or sometimes things are just a bi-product of a world full of other living things.  By accepting what happened instead of fighting it and being angry, I can see that God was present even in the midst of suffering and that he can ultimately take something like Lydia's illness and death and through us, transform it into something good.  Sometimes we can see these transformative events and sometimes we have to trust they are there.  Mary didn't know what was coming next after watching her son die but she didn't give up the ship.  

For me, Lydia's illness allowed me to find a voice in writing; it brought me closer to God; it helped me to learn what was really important in life and to share that wisdom with others; and it taught me the value of time. I still make mistakes.  I still am short-tempered, and I cuss too much.  I still get angry and I still worry too much.  But I do try and look around me and find that moment where I can try and see God at work even in the very darkest moments and I know that through us, transformation is possible. Through us, God really is present in all things. 

Sent from my iPhone

Balance

BALANCE

Thirteen years ago today we were in China at the White Swan Hotel.  We were enjoying the experience of becoming parents for the first time, in China.  Those of you who haven’t adopted can’t appreciate, I don’t think,  what a surreal experience it is when you haven’t been pregnant to be handed a one year old baby in a government office and think: ok, now we’re parents.  I’m sure biological parents experience this to some extent, but if you are pregnant there is some level of tangible reality to what is happening.  We had a photo, and then poof: a one year old.   I think about those days, because never in a million years, during those halcyon days in China did I think Lydia would die from leukemia just four years later.  

I often think about time.  It’s so hard to live in the moment.  Even when you have an experience that makes you appreciate the moment it must be against human nature to just “be”.  I’m guessing that hard-wired into our evolutionary brains is this drumbeat that we must plan.  It makes sense if you think about our ancestors up until about a hundred or so years ago.  If you didn’t plan, if you didn’t store enough food, if you didn’t chop enough wood, you wouldn’t make it through winter.  So, it makes sense.  So of course we think about the future.  And like our ancestors, who told stories sitting around campfires, and who drew paintings memorializing past events on cave walls, we also think about and mull over the past.  At the end of the day the place to reside, as with most of life, is somewhere in the middle between the two extremes of carpe diem! and being mired in the past.  

I think trauma elevates living in both of those poles to an extreme level.  When I think about people I often work with, there is usually at least one, or in some cases, a series of past traumas that push people into ping-ponging between those two poles of living with unheeded abandon in the present and becoming lost in the past.  Healthy individuals tend to have a grounding in all three realities:  past, present and future.  A proper balance among the three.  

For awhile after Lydia’s death, I was mired in the past.  Then I ping-ponged into carpe diem!, living so deeply in the present that I forgot about the future.  It’s taken me a long time to regain a healthy perspective on life.  It’s taken a lot of soul searching, meditation, prayer, yoga, and yes, even a bit of work, to constantly remind myself where I need to live.  

Recently, Mark and I celebrated our one year of marriage.  Of course, we’ve been married, all total, almost 19 years, but last year, after becoming Catholic, we were remarried, so to speak, in the Catholic Church.  We chose to get married on July 3rd, Lydia’s birthday so as to try and take a past event that was so bittersweet and make it into a present and future celebratory event.  I have to pat myself on the back a bit, and say that this was a very cunning plan and it worked to the point that Lydia’s birthday, for the first time since her death, was not a sad time.  In effect, we made a collage of that day, over-lapping happy memories with sad ones, forming a beautiful mosaic.  

So as I go about the rest of my summer, I’m going to try to achieve that balance of past, present and future.  Too much focus in any one area, and like a yoga pose, I lose focus, and crash to the ground.  I’m going to seek a balance among the three, knowing that even if I have to touch down occasionally to re-ground myself, there’s always tomorrow, with no mistakes in it.  

WINTER BLUES

January and February are hard months for many of us in Northeast Ohio.  There are many cloud-filled, sun-less days. It’s rainy, it’s snowy, and we spend too much time indoors.  For me, there is special poignancy to these months though because it is always the months my mind most focuses on my last days with Lydia.  I remember the last round of chemo in the hospital; that last trip to the clinic to essentially say “goodbye”; and then the bittersweet trip to Disneyworld and Florida.  That trip, she returned home in the baggage compartment of the airplane, in a coffin we picked out.  I remember every date of those days, and can place exactly what happened when and where we were, right up until the day she died:  February 24, 2009.

This January has been especially tough.  I had a very difficult case I was trying.  And I have battled an illness myself that turned more serious over time.  Many of you know that I had my own little “near death” experience when Lydia was a baby.  I have a very rare allergic reaction to antibiotics known as serum sickness.  Essentially, my body treats antibiotics as foreign substances, and even 7-14 days after I take an antibiotic, I can and have had life-threatening reactions to the medicine.  I don’t often go to the doctor. Because I can’t really take antibiotics safely, I fight things off using my own little homemade, Appalachian-inspired remedies.  Most of the time these work, but because of my run-down condition, all my fail-safe measures failed, and I had to go to the doctor.  When you have my condition you think that any infection could mean a near death or deathly hallows type of experience.   Being sick for me takes me way too close the edge.

I like to think I am a person of faith, but really, I think I am probably a fraud.  I think part of the reason I converted to Catholicism and why I am so involved in the Church is I think if I keep going back, somehow I can get over my anger at God, come to some kind of peace, and regain some measure of faith about the purpose of religion.  We all know that in good times faith is easy, but it is not so easy in hard times.  I’m going to be brutally honest and tell you that I still struggle daily with why Lydia was taken.  It is still the worst thing that has ever happened to me; it still feels like a grave injustice.  All the prayers didn’t save either her or many of the others kids I know from the hospital who have died.  I still struggle with understanding why, if prayer works, and it makes a difference, why prayers aren’t always answered.  I don’t want to hear something trite on this topic.  Until you have walked in my shoes, don’t judge how hard I prayed, or tell me it was God’s will, or tell me that suffering can be a beautiful thing.  If you have never watched a child suffocate and die from leukemia, yes, I said suffocate, try and keep quiet.   Really. 

I think it’s a lie to tell people that things get better with time.  Actually they don’t.  Especially when it comes to the death of a child.  Lydia would be 13, almost 14 now.  I can’t even picture what a Lydia of that age would be like.  But I see all the Chinese adoptees that I helped with getting U.S. birth certificates and adoption decrees turning 13, so I can kind of see what it would be like.  I see people with three living kids, and think about what it would be like for Lydia to be the big sister and protector of Max.  She would have beat up any kid that attempted to bother her sweet Max.  Gosh she loved him so.  And she would have loved doing Sarah’s make up and hair.  She would have loved being the big sister to a little sis.    

I realize there is no easy, and gee, not even a quick fix (if 8 years on can even be considered in the realm of “quick”) to ever, really get over what for me has been life-altering.  It has thrown into complete disarray my faith, my livelihood, my parenting skills, my relationship with others, but most of all, my own internal guide.  Everything I thought I knew about life was thrown into question or just plain trashed.  Maybe the only good thing that I can honestly say changed, in a positive way, internally for me eight years on is that I can truly understand and am sympathetic to people whose lives are in tumult.  I understand their bungled, jumbled lives and their poor decision making and thought processes, because in desperation, anger, sorrow and despair, we don’t always have the best judgment.  The other funny thing about life is how a snowball rolls downhill to become an avalanche.  It’s as if one bad things happens and then snowballs into a million others.  Let’s suppose your daughter gets leukemia, you close your business, you spend all your retirement taking her to Florida and buying her whatever she wants, then when she dies, you spend like crazy on the other kid to make up for what you didn’t and will never get to do for the other child, and then you spend gobs of money adopting again….here comes the snowball.  See, it’s something like that.

The best thing I can try and tell anyone is that life is going to throw you a curveball.  Maybe a really wicked one like Corey Kluber of the Cleveland Indians throws.  It will leave you bewildered, befuddled, and maybe even concussed.  When we choose to love others and take risks, we come to the home plate of life. In some ways, we want to see what type of pitch we get.  There could be the glory of a homerun in that pitch, or it could mean the end of a brilliant World Series’ run.  When the curveballs happen, learn from them how to be a better hitter, and more patient at the plate.  Don’t be careless and swing at the first pitch thrown, but also don’t let the pitcher keep you off the plate.  Make him throw strikes.  I think there is an important point here that I can tell you about but just can’t seem to do.  The best hitters don’t get angry when they strike out.  They learn how to be better hitters.  My problem is I’m in a slump.  I can’t get over my anger and so can’t figure out what the problem with my swing is or why Kluber’s curveball is so hard to hit.  I know there’s a lot of baseball in there but hey, I’m a huge baseball fan.

The bottom line is I don’t really have the answers…or maybe better said:  I think I know the answer, I just can’t implement it.  I want to believe all’s well that ends well, but looking around, I don’t think that is actually true.  We all see injustice, all the time in the world around us.  Sometimes injustice is so palpable, we can feel it in our bones.  Bad things do happen to good people.  Children do die from horrible diseases.  I can’t and won’t even attempt to justify how or why God allows this, let alone how it could be His will.  What I can say is that the only way I really know how to live out my faith is by action.  I am going to keep seeking, keep praying, keep trying, keep struggling, keep helping others, if only because that’s the only hope I have of somehow finding God and regaining any peace.  It may take me a lifetime.  I hope someday I can get there.  But I guess I also know that every journey begins with a single step.

What being Pro-life looks like for me

Thirteen years ago on Mother’s Day, I got a call from our social worker that we had received a referral for a baby girl from Guangzhou China who was then 10 months old.  I will never forget the first time I saw her face when her photo came up in the email the social worker sent me.  I can still see her tiny feet, her bushy Brooke Shield’s eyebrows, and her dark, sensitive, soul-filled eyes.  That was the day I became a mom.  For two months, I carried that photo around because it would not be until July 4th of that year that I got to hold our Lydia in my arms for the first time in an office building in China.  This little girl, who lived in an orphanage, who was underfed, underdeveloped, and un-loved, suddenly had a family, and a mama who sang to her, adored her and loved her.  That same little girl, who couldn’t even pick up a Cheerio with her fingers at one year of age, went on to dance, sing, draw wonderful pictures, and play the violin.  She was joined two years later, by our son Max whom we adopted from Korea.  For his adoption, we went to the Chicago O’Hare airport and picked up this stunned, chubby little baby who was in shock after the long plain ride with an escort he didn’t know.  Two beautiful children, almost two years apart.  Through adoption, our little family was complete.  Or so we thought…..

Life took a stunning turn, when, at age 5, Lydia was diagnosed with leukemia.  As soon as my beautiful girl was diagnosed, I willingly gave up my law practice to spend every waking moment of her nearly 6 months in hospital by her side.  I cut off my hair so she would know it was ok not to have any hair.  Through her journey with leukemia, we found her birth family in China, and learned her tragic story of how she came to reside in an orphanage.  Lydia was a victim of China’s one child policy.  Her parents had two older girls, but they wanted a boy.  In the quest for that elusive boy, Lydia was, we found out, one of many victims of abandonment.  Somewhere in China, or around the world, are Lydia’s sisters, given up for abandonment by her parents, just as Lydia was on a hot day in July in 2003.  Her parents were unwilling even to help their daughter when she had leukemia, refusing to allow their middle daughter to give Lydia much needed life-saving bone marrow.  It was then that I came to realize what I guess I had already known.  Biology is just genetics.  Motherhood is a gift of the spirit.  When Lydia’s birthmother told me through a translator that she didn’t love her child, and didn’t care whether she lived or died, I came to realize that Lydia had not been born of my womb, but that she was truly my child, none-the-less.  She was a child of my heart. 

When Lydia passed away six months later from leukemia, I knew a piece of my heart would always be with her and another piece died with her when she passed away.  Two years after Lydia died, we adopted our now six year old Sarah-Grace from Korea, traveling to Korea to get her and allowing Max the opportunity to see his orphanage and  to visit with his foster mom.  It was an emotional trip for us all. 

When I think about abortion, I think about my three children, all of whom were true gifts from God, and I think about the fact that I am so blessed that they were given a chance at life.  It seems absurd and wrong to imagine that my children might not be here, had their mothers chosen to have an abortion.  What would our lives be like without these magnificent souls?  The world would be a darker place without the lives of Lydia, Max, and Sarah-Grace.

When I think about adoption, I think about the fact that we who are pro life have a responsibility to not just talk the talk, but walk the walk.  We need to care about the unborn and protect their lives at the most vulnerable stage, but we also have to realize that not every mother who chooses life will also choose adoption.  And in that sense, we need to support mothers who choose life by supporting policies that support that decision.  We need to be a support to moms at every stage of their child’s life, knowing that for many moms who do choose life, it is going to be a lifelong, uphill battle to keep and raise that child. 

In my work as an attorney and guardian ad litem, I represent both parents and children who cross paths with Children’s Services.  For many families, the cycle of Children’s Services’ involvement began when the parents themselves were children and were removed from their parent’s care.  The support system and passing along of knowledge and wisdom necessary to make them capable parents in many cases, never happened and just isn’t there.  We, as a community, need to fill in that gap for these individuals, and instead of condemning or judging them, we need to offer them a helping hand in a non-judgmental way.  As Atticus Finch, the heroic lawyer from Harper Lee’s To Kill Mockingbird fame, once observed, you can’t really judge a person unless you’ve walked around in their shoes and have seen life from their perspective. 

Programs like WIC, Help Me Grow, and Head Start help these families in many ways, but we need to do MORE.  For the women I work with, a car breaking down with no money to fix it, can mean the difference between a certain level of stability and…homelessness.  Many of these women live their life as a house of cards…one thing goes wrong, and everything comes crashing down around them.   The drug epidemic our cities and towns are facing is a stark reminder that children are always the victims when parents lives go awry.  If we want to help children, we have to help their parents.

For most, abortion is a choice borne of desperation.  If we want women who are pregnant to choose LIFE, we need to show them there is a way other than desperation.  We need to be willing to pay more taxes to support programs for families in these situations, and we need to give generously of our time, talents and treasures and be the face of Christ to those in need. 

So in that spirit, I invite each and every one of you to do what you can to assist babies, children, and families at all levels of need…whether it be helping an unwed mother; reaching out to a single mother struggling to make it with her children; supporting policies that provide the necessary support system for moms; fostering children in need, or adopting an orphan from right here or around the world, whatever you can give, every bit of help counts.  I will close with this reminder from St. Theresa of Calcutta:  WE need to be the answer to someone's prayer.