For Life

Today is the day that is always a hard one.  I can remember the second time I marched in the March for Life in DC and the suffering that was occurring at the same time. You see, I had just found out that I was pregnant not too long before I was set to go on the bus trip to the march.  But alongside the joy, I knew something wasn't right, I was bleeding.  As I went to the march my mind was a mess, but I carried on, maybe aloof, but nonetheless carried on, because I didn't want to process.  I had gone in for blood work a few times before and was awaiting results, though honestly I already knew them.  I just didn't want to accept it. I wanted this...a baby... to be pregnant.  So I kept it all in and marched, miscarrying a baby all the while. It sucked.

I was not in the place where I dealt with things at the time though, so on I went, sleeping on a hard gym floor with a bunch of teenagers fighting for life, miscarrying my first baby. I don't think I told a lot of people for a while, I just didn't.  Instead, a few months later, I bawled my eyes out at a mass where I knew no one except my husband and Jesus. It was so needed. I finally understood that I loved that tiny person that I never really even got to know.

So I wanted to say something profound about life, about people mattering, because they all do.  This baby that I barely knew that seemed to be doomed from the start did matter.  I may not have understood then anywhere close to what he or she meant, but he mattered. I think these experiences, the ones that a person doesn't fully process at the time do build our character. I think maybe this experience does say a lot about me, that I am full of fear, of appearing to be off centered or just not okay.  I'm working on that.

I have grown in my understanding of love since then, I don't think it means that I am any bit more okay than I was then.  But I think that I'm more okay with being vulnerable.  And that's kind of what love does, it makes us vulnerable.  And bringing another life into the world, that is vulnerability at its finest.  With this vulernability comes suffering and through that suffering we learn to love. Love is always worth it.  Life if always worth it.  And so we march, or march by proxy or just take a stand and a chance on love. The joy that love will bring is so much greater than we can imagine.