hopes for the future

To my future children,

I hope you never have to live in a world filled with fear. I hope you can run and you can dance and you can participate with no consequence for your innocence. I hope you feel safe at home and that your home is the world. I hope you see a time when different cultures start conversations, not wars. I hope that basic rights are given to all, but if not, that you see to it that they are. I hope you feed the hungry, but I hope more that there is no more hunger. I hope that peace isn't a dream for you. I hope you can have that "tucked into bed" feeling of safety when you're in a crowd, when you're alone, and when it's dark outside. I hope you are delicate and strong; I hope you are breakable, but no one would break you. I hope you don't have to find yourself drowning beneath your covers from the world's intolerance and hate. I hope I can start making life better for you today.

-your future mother

Mimi

My grandma Mimi passed away yesterday. I am truly heartbroken and trying to find ways to manage & process the grief and the loss. I won't be posting here too much for a while.

I loved my grandma and she loved me. I miss her so much already.

crape myrtles

I wrote a really long post, but it was too much and I'm too jumbled to make sense of my thoughts this late, so here's this picture I found on google images from Saldivia-Jones photog (the picture was relevant to the entry I just erased):

ocean & emotion

I saw the ocean for the first time ever last week. It was beautiful.

Key West

Nassau

Now I'm back and I have a week of "nothing to do" and I am feeling hyper emotional and excessively introspective. I'm also spending way too much time on Pinterest & Etsy, due in part to my sister's upcoming baby shower.

I am just feeling like my own skin doesn't suit me the past few days; feels like I am just not in the right place, like I need to do something about it, but all I can do is try to think - yes, try, because fruitful thoughts are out of my reach in this strange state I find myself in. Just yikes.

Going to Michigan with Ryan next week. Looking forward to it. Will write here again in the next few days- and will actually have relevant pro-lifery to write about, I hope.

feeling sad & Christmas Mass

I don't know what is going on with me right now. According to my new Netflix obsession "How I Met Your Mother," nothing good ever happens after 2:00 a.m. and I suppose that is accurate. It's hard to be devoted to the cause sometimes because it can make a person feel so small at times.

One thing that got me really sad a few days ago was just thinking about how isolated I can feel when I go back to my hometown. Christmas Mass, for example, used to be one of the loneliest and most awkward times of the year. Before I could drive it was the worst. I started going to Mass when I was 14 years old and I didn't realize that Christmas Mass would be different from the LifeTeen Masses I was used to, where you could show up by yourself and find your friends and just make your own pew. No, Christmas Masses aren't something you can do solo. Before I could drive was the worst because I'd get dropped off, no big deal, but then waiting for my ride and watching all the other families pile into their vehicles with the "Keep the Christ in Christmas" or "BABY DUE" stickers... that was just awkward... and cold. Not so much the weather, but mostly just in my heart. Was that emo? Yes... but was I fourteen when I experienced these emo emotions? Yes. Makes sense!

Once I got older, a new problem arose: I am tall and could potentially look like a young wife. One year I sat at the end of a crowded pew. The usher directed me to sit next to a young father with his 3 young children. The wife left with the youngest, who was crying, and then I realized that - at 16 - I appear to be the mother of these children. Obviously this is a total stretch, but in a way Christmas Mass kind of is about appearances to some (red sweaters, dresses, coordinated couples, bows everywhere, etc.) and it appeared that I belonged to this family. I don't remember much else about that Mass except feeling so weird and wanting to leave because I was such an extra.

Now, I don't cry anymore! Go Sarah! lame. But really, now I kind of have grown to like going to Mass alone. It beats not going and I can't imagine how strange it would feel to have my family there with me. This year I had prepared myself to sit alone and I did, until a friend's family absorbed me into their pew... which I would've enjoyed, had it not been for the texting & whispering when I was really feeling like getting into a reverent mood.

These rando Christmas Mass stories are just one little way that I feel isolated when I come home. The biggest, I realized over this break, is just the gap that exists between my life and the life I share with my family. It hurts that so much of what I have done the past 3 years and so much of what I plan to do in the future is wrapped up in the Pro-Life movement, along with my heart, while my family doesn't share any of my beliefs in the matter. I love my parents and family so dearly, and they love me too, and I know they will support me in whatever I do... but it sucks to feel like I am being supported, but not my ambitions. It's like "we support you, but not necessarily what you do." I think of friends' parents who I can share my Pro-Life ventures with and sometimes I feel sad that my parents don't share that. It's like they are missing half of who I am. I resort back to this reclusive and cynical person when I come home... and I am starting to think it's because I have to turn off "Pro-Life Sarah" and this sarcastic shell of a person is all that is left. I love my parents to the end of the world and back, but I'm sad that I cannot be myself in the place where I became myself- my childhood home. I feel like a lot of what I am expressing can be summed up in that moment where I am dressed and ready for Mass and leave in the middle of our family Christmas celebration, with extended family over and all, and it's kind of like everyone does their own thing... and Sarah goes off to do her little church thing. How much more open am I with Pro-Life friends I have only known for a short time? How much more do my NRL Academy girls understand me than my own family? Oh dear, now I'm crying.

Well... I'm waking up in 6 hours to take maternity photos for a friend, so I should be going to bed. Actually, I've been in bed for 2 hours but just can't sleep, so I guess I should be going to sleep.

a poem

If I had a genie right now that would grant me 3 wishes, I would wish that Ella Wheeler Wilcox could return from the grave and tell me the stories behind her poems that ring so true in my heart.

Life's Scars
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

They say the world is round, and yet

I often think it square,

So many little hurts we get

From corners here and there.

But one great truth in life I've found,

While journeying to the West-

The only folks who really wound

Are those we love the best.

The man you thoroughly despise

Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;

Annoyance in your heart will rise

At things mere strangers do;

But those are only passing ills;

This rule all lives will prove;

The rankling wound which aches and thrills

Is dealt by hands we love.

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,

Are oft to strangers shown;

The careless mien, the frowning face,

Are given to our own.

We flatter those we scarcely know,

We please the fleeting guest,

And deal full many a thoughtless blow

To those who love us best.

Love does not grow on every tree,

Nor true hearts yearly bloom.

Alas for those who only see

This cut across a tomb!

But, soon or late, the fact grows plain

To all through sorrow's test:

The only folks who give us pain

Are those we love the best.

prayers for Jon

Jon Scharfenberger passed away this morning. He was a true advocate for life. Prayers go out to his family. I am fortunate enough to have met him this summer while he was an intern and I was an Academy student in the National Right to Life office.

stuck.

how can i study when my heart is struck with so much sadness?

prayer

I did a lot of reflecting this weekend on retreat and had a nice time. Upon returning home I read some devastating news about the death of a Pro-Life warrior woman and her unborn child, and about the critical condition of a young man I met this summer at the NRL office. A recent update about him said:

Jon Scharfenberger, the SFLA Coordinator of our Pregnant on Campus Initiative, in the car during the accident and Hawkins tells LifeNews he “is not doing well.” She said Monday morning, “Currently, he is in critical condition in a hospital in Georgia, where the accident happened.

I am heartbroken for the mother, her child, and their family. I just can't quite understand how things like this happen, I guess. I've never lost someone very close to me or even someone (other than family) that I have been acquaintances with really; understanding death is not something I do well.

Times like this are what really show us what matters, I suppose, and show us the fragility of human life.

What is difficult for me is the concept of being fine one second and gone the next; without even knowing it is happening your entire life can be taken from you. I don't know how to explain myself right now. I am so distraught over this and I hardly know Jon. He was very smart and very Catholic and very cheerful/full of energy any time I was around him this summer. Lord, please let him live.

I am heartbroken over this accident while barely knowing Jon; I cannot even imagine the anguish his family and friends must be experiencing.

St. Jude, pray for us.

[UPDATE] Just saw this:

Prayers for Jon ScharfenbergerOur other staff member injured in the accident that claimed Kortney and her baby, Sophy, is Jon Scarfenberger.
I’ve been in constant contact throughout the day with our SFLA staff getting updates.
It’s bad, and at 3 AM it turned really bad. It’s gotten worse throughout the day. At this point, we need a miracle for Jon to make it to tomorrow. If it’s God’s will, may Jon stay and grow old with us.
Please pray for this beautiful young man, and for his family who are beside themselves with grief and the hard work of keeping him alive. Jon’s mom is a nurse and at the hospital in Georgia. His dad is a physician and should be arriving there shortly, after coordinating efforts from their home here in New York.
Updates to follow, but for now, please pray!