I was born in 1962, twelve years into my parents’ marriage. They were older when I came along, and their lives were already marked by hardship and sacrifice. My father had served as a corporal in Korea, all of my uncles fought in World War II, and my grandfather immigrated from Germany fatherless during World War I. My mother, who grew up in Galveston, remembered watching the girls her age walking off to Catholic school in their uniforms, something she longed for and later passed on to me.
My father liked to say he wasn’t raising a hippie. At the time, I didn’t even know what a hippie was, but I knew I didn’t want to be one. My parents made countless sacrifices to send me and my siblings to Catholic schools from kindergarten through twelfth grade. My dad was not Catholic, but he supported my mother’s conviction. There were no fancy houses, bass boats, or country club memberships. Their hope was simply that their children would have a better life.
My father used the GI Bill to study mechanical engineering. My own formation came during a time when Catholic schools still held onto their purpose, before confusion and ideology eroded much of their strength. By the time I was sixteen, I found myself speaking before the Beaumont City Council. The cause may seem trivial in hindsight, but it awakened something in me, the first step in a lifetime of grassroots activism. Deo gratis.
It was at Texas A&M that my life took a new turn. As a freshman, I met the man who would become my husband of now more than forty-four years. He was not Catholic at the time, but he entered RCIA while we were students. With far too much arrogance, I thought I had all the answers. What I found instead was how much I still had to learn about grace.
St. Mary’s Student Center in those days was unlike many Catholic centers that had drifted from the faith. Under the wise and steady leadership of Fr. Al Palermo, it remained faithful to the teachings of the Church, fidelity that years later would be restated in the Catechism. I often remind today’s pastors that the blessings St. Mary’s enjoys now flow from that fidelity.
While at A&M, my husband and I served as directors of the crisis pregnancy center. My activism deepened, and I occasionally found myself in front of the media. The pro-life cause was never just a side interest; it was woven into my life.
Graduate school followed, with two little children in tow. In California, we found ourselves under a pastor whose teaching was deeply distorted. By God’s immeasurable grace, we were spared the damage his ideas inflicted on many others. It was a turning point: my husband and I realized in a visceral way that fidelity to the Church’s teaching really matters. When we later moved to the East Coast for his postdoctoral work, fidelity became our measuring stick.
There we discovered other young families who were also trying to raise children faithful to God in a hostile culture. Compared to today, the obstacles seemed lighter. Suicide, heavy medication, and the crushing costs of housing were not daily battles. We bought a home, planted roots, and built a village. Our family flourished in those years.
But in time, my husband discerned a call to return to Texas. I resisted fiercely because I had “Potomac fever” and loved our life in the East. Leaving felt like tearing something away. Yet I chose to follow his lead. In hindsight, I see it as a providential escape. Someone once told me our timing was like the last flight out of Saigon, with people clinging to the plane as extremism replaced the liberalism we had known. At the time, I was morose. Now, I am deeply grateful. I believe some of my children would not have survived spiritually if we had stayed.
On this birthday, I pause to honor the shoulders I stand on. My parents’ sacrifices, the faith that sustained me, the husband and children who have been my life’s blessing, all of it is wrapped in God’s tender mercy. As St. Thérèse of Lisieux wrote in Story of a Soul: “Everything is grace.”
Deo gratis. AMDG.