Marching for Marla, 2007

I went down with the Catholics again. Guess who was on my bus? Sarah! The girl who had been banned from passing out literature at her school on the Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity!

She's adorable, isn't she? What a sweet kid!

We stayed at the Bassilica again. We set out stuff in the crypt, then one of the staff chased us out and told us to set up at the open area in the center of the crypts, then he found out there were 37 of us, one in a wheelchair, and let us back into the crypt. We slept with a dead bishop.

I settled behind a pilar that had a metal reproduction of the head of the Virgin Mary from Michalangel's Pieta. They forgot I was there and woke me up very late in the morning! I had to rush to get my teeth brushed before we left. (We had to be out of the crypt before a 5:30 a.m. mass to be held there.)

We set off for the Verizon Center, where everybody else was attending the Youth Rally, while I hustled down the street to the Family Research Council building for the bloggers' conference.

Alas, the snow that had blown into the bus luggage area while we'd been unloading melted in the night and ruined the picture of Marla on my sign. I had to rush off to Kinko's to print a new one. Expensive! Fortunately I'd brought extra strips of Con-tac paper so I could affix it propery to the sign.

After the conference, off to the March. Everything was running late, I guess because of the weather. I found my group, but quickly got separated from them in the crunch. It was absolutely packed! I also got slowed because a lot of people wanted to read my sign.

I had kept the back simple, easy to read at a distance:

A lot of people were saddened, many grossed out. Though this bewildered me. How can they see all the mangled fetus pictures all the time, and hear all the gruesome descriptions of abortions, and be grossed out by anything?

I met Ann Marie, and Teresa, two of the Silent No More bloggers, along with many other Silent No More ladies. They had led the March and when they arrived at the Supreme Court they spread out along the curb. I talked to them for quite a while. We were crying. They were thanking me for remebering Marla and the other dead women and I was telling my story and how but for the grace of God, I'd have been standing beside them with my own sign. I'd been spared their anguish just because of my husband's choice of friends.

Our group was supposed to meet at the downhill end of the Rayburn building at 4:15, but by 4:10 there wasn't a sign of any of them. I borrowed a cell phone and found out that they'd just been delayed looking for each other, as we'd all been scattered in the press of the crowd. An uneventful ride home. And here I am, waiting to read of other people's experiences.

Next time I think I'll prepare a small two-sided card explaining why I'm marching for Marla, and about my calling to see to it that the dead aren't dismissed as irrelevant, so much grist for the abortion mill.

I have to go inspect the Cemetery of Choice site now for broken links. I get the feeling I'll be getting a lot of page views today.

For a great batch of photos, see MommyLife.