Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Suffering for the March for Life?

A week ago today I headed out my door for the 2009 March for Life along with nine teenagers and three other adults. We drove two vans to Pittsburgh where we picked up a bus with friends there.

Most everything went beautifully. The weather was gorgeous -- 46 and sunny. (Interestingly it was 30 and icky for the inauguration two days earlier.) We had first class accommodations. In past years, we've slept on church floors or dorm beds (aka as back killers). This year, thanks to Priceline.com we stayed in a Hyatt Place with a pool and everything.

Thanks to Fr. Lawler's intercession I had no problems with all the standing and walking. In the past I've always found myself exhausted before we even started marching.

Plus, to top it all off, we got to see Christian and hang out with the Steuby students.

As wonderful as all that is, I somehow feel that we didn't suffer enough. (Only a Catholic would think like that!) It was too easy.

One thing that wasn't easy was meeting up with friends. The plan was to call one another on our cell phones and connect. However, it was far too loud. The conversations went something like this:
Hi M . . .
what?
P . . . here
I can't . . . you
Huh?
I'm under the . . . banner . . . next to . . .
click

Half the time I wasn't even sure who I was talking to.

Even though five different friends called me, I was only able to hook up with one -- Dawn of A Helping Hand. And that was only a two-minute visit as my kids were dragging me away to find the Franciscan University banner. But at least Dawn had the foresight to take a picture of us.

Oh well, it's all about saving the babies and not socializing with friends. Even so, we'll plan a little better next year.

3 comments:

Dawn said...

Great post. That phone conversation had me laughing hard! It was sooooo loud! I am sure there were tons of bloggers out there Thursday. Perhaps next year we can make our own banner and march together!

Maureen said...

Bloggers for Life

A scathingly brilliant idea!!!

Simple Faith and Life said...

What a great idea about bloggers marching together! (Could we bring a few guests along? :) ).

I was so disappointed that we didn't get to meet up, but the crazy phone call was really fun! I had the same thought about it being about the babies, not about socializing with friends (thanks for the link).