An Rud A Lionas An Tsuil Lionann Se An Croi

I'm not going to change your mind about abortion. I know I'm not. No matter how many statistics, testimonies, scientific facts I post, I know some people will not be swayed from their position.  But you know what? That's not really my intention anyway. @destinynwf Since the news broke about the Texas Heartbeat Bill my newsfeed has been full of posts about it. I've seen people lauding it, people decrying it, and plenty of people who are feeling a bit of both. I've seen a lot of misinformation about it, a lot of fear-mongering. I've seen false hope and premature relief. I've shared things on my own social media pages about the bill, too.  I know it's not going to necessarily change anyone's mind.  What's my intention, then? I share these things and I talk about these things because I believe that the only way to truly create change, the kind of change that both sides want, is by thinking about these things, really thinking about them, and then get...

 I was sitting in the movie theater with my dad, waiting for Jurassic Park III to start. On the screen a bank robbery scene played out; men in suits with their Nokias stuff money into bags and flee to the roof where a getaway helicopter awaits them. They seem to be in the clear, cackling merrily, when they suddenly get pulled backwards by some invisible force. The camera pulls back to reveal the helicopter trapped on a spiderweb spun between the Twin Towers, its rotor twitching like the wings of a stuck housefly. Spider-Man . My dad, almost forty-one, was visibly excited. Spider-Man was his favorite superhero, I remember him telling me. He loved the comics as a boy. The web-slinging hero, he told me, was just a kid. He didn't have the money that Bruce Wayne had; he made his own tech. He wasn't an adult with the confidence of Superman. Just a kind of nerdy kid from New York, an orphan, with a good brain, a good heart, & powers inherited from the bite of right-place-right-ti...

There's a beautiful picture I've seen posted on social media several times over the last few days. In between the screenshots from the video of George Floyd's horrific death and the photos of rioters interrupting otherwise peaceful protests is this snapshot of a toddler George, fast asleep, and snuggled up against his mother.  It's an image I'm very much familiar with, especially these days as I spend most of my time feeding my one-month-old. So often she falls asleep while eating and I get the joy of gazing down on her peaceful face, perhaps with a big smile similar to Larcenia Floyd's. It's also an image that I see time again in the myriad of depictions of the Virgin Mary and Christ child. In my home, in my church, in my son's school, I see it everywhere. Statues, paintings, refrigerator magnets, artwork from my nieces and nephews. Sometimes Mary is smiling, a small, gentle smile; other times she is gazing wistfully at her son, who is often sleeping...

My husband & a couple others dug the hole. Not the standard six feet. Only three or so. Wide & long enough for the small coffin, with plenty of room to spare.  Before our priest came I stood & looked down at the grave, at the stone we had placed at its head. It sits under a tree that was sent to us from Oklahoma by the father of a dear friend of ours. He passed away only a few months after we received the tree. We weren't sure how it would fare in our climate, but it's so far survived two New England winters. It seemed like an appropriate spot for our little one, the child that will never grow under the tree that grows against the odds. As I stared into the hole I felt suddenly self-conscious. Silly, even. All of this for a child who was only the size of a raspberry. But it didn't matter, not to me, how big or little she had been. Or if she had even been a she. I had carried her for more than 12 weeks; the first eight weeks alive, the next several for as ...