Little White Caskets: A Lesson in Love

(A blog post from December became the basis for a paper for my writing class. This was the paper I handed in, though I have a sneaking suspicion it's not seen its last edit. The timeline and events are skewed. I think being so young, I tried to block a lot of it out. It wasn't until later that I stopped to think about the impact of the events mentioned. My mother corrected a few points but nothing was skewed enough to change the paper.)

I found myself in a graveyard this week about an hour and a half outside the city. Carefully observing gravestone after gravestone, I took a moment to thank God for the life of each person buried there. As I walked and read the names, subtracting one year from another to figure the age they lived to be, I wondered what each was like. I wondered about their smile and their laugh. I wondered if they enjoyed music or nature or church. Some had "beloved daughter/son" or "mother/father". It was sweet to see the care taken of the majority of the graves. There was even a grave there with a poem in the headstone. It spoke of the beloved dead's smile and her sweet laugh. It spoke of her charming personality lighting up the small town where she lived and died. She sounded like a very sweet young girl, dead at thirty-two. I remember walking carefully along the paths between graves and noticing how many servicemen were laid to rest there. Vietnam. Korea. Both world wars. "Thank you," I would whisper as I ended my prayer. "Thank you for the gift of your life." As I finished my thoughts at one marker I noticed a small stone in the ground where I thought I might take my next step. There I read only a name and two dates. There was no special message describing service or smiles. Only a plain-font stone rested there and below it lied the body of a child, lost the day of his birth. I remember taking a small step back, the image of a little white casket frozen in my mind. "Sweet baby! You were loved." I knew that love - the love of someone so small, so innocent, so unprepared for what was to come, not that anyone was or could be.

It was December 1, 1997, that Joseph Adam was born into the Hughey family. A light six pounds, five ounces, blue and purple all over but with a healthy scream. I was at school that day, as I had been when my sister was born only a year before, and received the news over the intercom system in my fifth grade classroom. Lots of pride, lots of joy, lots of excitement that morning. The afternoon, though, would bring heartache and anxiety.

Later, when I saw my dad, his eyes brimming with tears, I knew something was terribly wrong. He pulled a handful of small Polaroids from his jacket pocket, smiling through the tears, proudly showing off my new brother and Mom who had been so brave that morning. This time my friends weren't allowed to see them. Only I stood looking at them with Dad before we rushed to the car. We were both quiet on the drive to the hospital. "He probably won't make it to see his first birthday." He couldn't tell me anymore and I couldn't ask. I sat there, staring ahead, tears filling my ten-year-old eyes. For the first time in my life I was experiencing death and hurting because I loved the life death was claiming, even so new, so unknown, so inexperienced.

Joseph was a fighter from day one. He moved from the NICU into the nursery in less than a week and was home within two weeks after that. For that first year of his life he was in and out of Children's Hospital enduring test after test and surgery after surgery. The doctors didn't know what was wrong. No answers, only questions. Except for one question: "How is this kid still alive?" They asked it right up to his first birthday. And on his first birthday, we celebrated. We laughed a lot and we cried a lot. We did the same on his second. Each year Joseph taught us something new about living in love. To love Joseph was to know pain. To be attached to him was to know heartache. He was going to die.

Joseph was prodded and poked more than I would have been able to stand and still he laughed... a lot. He only rarely cried and hardly ever whined. He brought joy to lives that did not know joy while he himself suffered greatly. No matter his condition, Joseph loved with his whole self in the best - and sometimes, only - way he knew how. Even confined to a hospital bed he hugged and cuddled. He blew kisses despite the limited movement of his hands and arms which were strapped with tubes and needles and patches. With Joseph in my life, my daily thoughts were plagued by conscious thoughts of death - of his death - and still it was richer, more fulfilling, more worthwhile than ever it had been. I hadn't lived long but I knew, even then, that Joseph had changed me and would continue to change me forever.

Joseph had a feeding tube that pierced his tender, sickly little body and most people stared. His head was a little larger than normal and he was emaciated looking. To strangers, especially adults, looking at Joseph was frightening. But to those who knew him, looking at him was to look at Love. Looking at Joseph, I'm sure some people wondered why Mom didn't abort him when she first found out. Truth be told, she didn't want any more children. But she knew the value of life and happily prepared a space for him in her heart and in our home. She was told shortly after his birth that he would not live to one but she didn't give up on him. At one, she was told he would not live to two. At two he would not live to five. Now we dare to hope to see his eighteenth birthday.

Standing there in the graveyard ten years after my brother's birth, again thanking God for the gift of life, I remembered all of the little white caskets I've known - caskets which held children not as "lucky" as Joseph but who still possessed a great purpose, a great lesson to teach. How greatly those caskets - like Joseph's life - have changed each of our lives. Each casket represents a person who didn't move in next door, someone who didn't bake a winning pie for the local fair, someone who didn't partake in the sign of peace at Mass on Sunday. Each white casket is someone we have loved and lost. And lives we have loved and lost, if we let them, change us for the better.

So today I wonder this: if we gave a casket to every child not allowed even that one hour of life, how many little white caskets would we have buried by now? How many lives have been loved, if only by God, and lost due not to natural causes or freak accidents but to a lack of care or concern by those closest to them? How many caskets would we fill with the bodies of our brethren who were not given the chance to change our lives - in one hour, one day, one year?

The Point of the Spear

What more can I add that is not so well written in Mark's post about the March for Life this Saturday?

Nothing. Read it.

Little White Caskets

I found myself in a graveyard this week about an hour and a half outside the city. I wasn't there to visit anyone myself so I wandered around, reading gravestone after gravestone, thanking God for the lives of each person buried there. As I walked and read the names, subtracting one year from another to figure the age they lived to be, I wondered also what each one was like. I wondered about their smile and their laugh. I wondered if they enjoyed music or nature or church. Some had "beloved daughter/son" or "mother/father". It was sweet to see the care that was taken of the majority of the graves.

There was even a grave there that had a poem in the headstone. It spoke of the beloved dead's smile and her sweet laugh. It spoke of her charming personality lighting up the small town where she lived and died. She sounded like a very sweet young girl, dead at 32.

I remember walking carefully along the paths between graves and noticing how many servicemen were laid to rest there. Vietnam. Korea. World War II. World War I. How brave those men must have been. "Thank you," I would whisper as I ended my prayer. "Thank you for the gift of your life."

As I finished my thoughts at one marker I noticed a small stone in the ground where I thought I might take my next step. There I read only a name and two dates. There was no special message describing service or smiles. Only a plain-font stone rested there and below it lied the body of a child, lost the day of his birth. I remember taking a small step back and catching my breath. "Sweet baby.. you were loved."

In a matter of moments I remembered all of the little white caskets I've known in my day. (In my day... as if I'm so old...) How greatly those caskets have changed each of our lives. You may not realize that you too have been affected by a little white casket. But I'm here to tell you that you have. Each casket is a person who didn't move in next door to you last year, a person who didn't bake a winning apple pie for the local fair, a person who didn't shake your hand during the sign of peace at Mass on Sunday. Each white casket is a life loved and lost. And lives that are loved and lost are changes (for better or for worse) in each person who loved.

And so today I wonder this: if we gave a casket to every child that wasn't allowed even that one hour of life, how many white caskets would we have buried by now? How many lives have been loved (if only by God) and lost due not to natural causes or freak accidents but to a lack of care or concern by those closest to them? How many caskets would we fill with the bodies of our brethren who were not given the chance to change our lives - in one hour, one day, one year?

Josiah, requiescat in pace, ora pro nobis.

Matt, from the school of Mary, twin brother of Nick at phatcatholic apologetics, is asking for prayers for Amy, author of The "Refusal to Grasp", and her husband Duston. I haven't kept up with Amy in a while and so I missed her post about losing their first child, Josiah, to miscarriage. It is a beautiful post and definitely worth the read. The story is amazing and their faith, awe-inspiring. May the good Lord bless them and keep them, shower His every grace upon them, and may the Holy Spirit descend in this time of great suffering, to be with them and give them His peace.

Matt also provides this link for reading on the name Josiah.

Please pray for the peace of this family. Josiah, requiescat in pace, ora pro nobis.

Entering Canaan

'From the Friars' Daily eLetter: February 17, 2007

Last weekend I was privileged to witness an extraordinary healing of several women. This work of God didn’t happen at a popular Marian shrine or charismatic prayer meeting, but rather in an elegant retreat house almost hidden in a hilly and wooded suburb of Stanford, Connecticut. Despite the wide range of ages, personalities, and cultural backgrounds, the women were one—bonded like blood sisters because they all shared a common affliction. However, the pain they brought with them on Friday evening was replaced with a deep peace by Sunday morning.

The weekend retreat was conceived by Theresa Bonopartis and the Sisters of Life, a religious community dedicated to support the dignity of human life. Theresa was inspired to name the retreat “Entering Canaan,” which refers to the forty year journey of the children of Abraham through the desert and into the Promised Land. Who, you may ask, does this retreat serve? Who is it who journeys so long, and what is the desert they wander through? The answer simply stated is this: The retreat is for women who have suffered the loss of a child through abortion.

Theresa began the Entering Canaan retreat weekend because she knew that women need a quiet, safe, and non-judgmental environment in which to face a fact which follows them like a very dark shadow: one day they decided to take the life of the child within their womb. While some have experienced a certain sadness and anxiety from “day one,” others did not feel any of the symptoms of Post Abortion Syndrome until many years later. For those who suffer from this syndrome, the list is long, yet very familiar: guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, nightmares, substance abuse, eating disorders, and suicidal thoughts. Yes, the desert is dry and deep, and the journey very lonely and painful.

Those who participate in the Entering Canaan weekend don’t have to wait long to discover why Theresa Bonopartis believes post-abortive women need healing. She, in fact, is one; she has “been there and back.” It is her own healing which validates her words and the reason why she now spends all of her time in this wonderful work. Theresa will be the first to admit that the retreat weekend is not terribly creative, yet it is re-creative. Avoiding anything which might be dramatic or over emotional, she and the sisters simply use the tools recommended by the Church, namely, silence, prayer, adoration, confession, communion, and fellowship. The Entering Canaan retreat cleanses both mind and soul more like a warm bath than an invigorating shower.

Theresa has told her story on radio and television, and before an almost countless number of audiences. The Catholic Bishops Conference highlighted her testimony in a nationally distributed mailing on pro-life. Little would she know that the secret tragedy of her abortion would one day be known by so many. Yet, it would not be the shame and guilt of the abortion which would send her out on her mission, but rather her dramatic healing. In short, she tells us, “I was healed by the Divine Mercy of God.”

Theresa Bonopartis is no visionary or mystic, yet I believe that she is an apostle on the edge of a work which may one day be akin to Alcoholics Anonymous. She is convinced that we are rapidly developing a post-abortive culture where literally millions of people bear the negative effects of the evil act of abortion. She has proven that not only is the woman deeply wounded, but also the father and the extended family. When Theresa decided one day to tell her grown sons about the abortion she had when she was young, one of her sons said, “Now it all makes sense. I never knew what went wrong—it now all makes sense.”

Entering Canaan isn’t about the politics or the controversy which often surrounds abortion; it’s about healing and hope. Yet this message of healing is not only for women. For this reason, Theresa is also working with the friars to provide retreat days for men affected by abortion. How is it possible one simple retreat can bring years of wandering in a painful desert to an end? The answer is mercy—Divine Mercy. How do I know? I was there.

Fr. Glenn Sudano, CFR
Most Blessed Sacrament Friary, Newark, NJ