Mary & AnnaLeah: A Short Film When we got back home after the crash (May 4, 2013) and were looking through our photo and video files, we found some short video clips of a short story which AnnaLeah had apparently written and which she narrated as Mary acted it out. Their older sister Susanna filmed it with her digital camera in our backyard in Midland, Texas (circa 2009). Remembering AnnaLeah (17) and Mary (13).Miss you every single day.
How would Mary have celebrated her 17th birthday today? Well, I don’t know for sure. But I know that she would have enjoyed making her own homemade pizza with us tonight. (Or would she have chosen something else for her birthday meal?)
I know that she would have been glued to the TV or her computer watching the Olympics. She loved watching the 2012 Summer Olympics!
Whatever she would have chosen to do on her special day, Mary would have made the most of it because “every day’s a holiday with Mary” and she knew how to live joyfully — when she wasn’t grumpy, that is.
I just discovered that the photos below were ones that Mary took on August 6, 2012 — the day she became a teenager and the last birthday she would ever celebrate:
I also just noticed from these photos from her camera that Mary gave her beloved Gertie a bath on her 13th birthday (the beloved stuffed toy given to her by AnnaLeah so many birthdays before).
Notice the photos Mary took that same day of some of her favorite books (probably her birthday presents from AnnaLeah, whom I can’t ask to be sure) — including an American Girl one about a gymnast!
And I most definitely would not have launched a new petition on Mary’s birthday to ask NHTSA to mandate SIDE GUARDS on trucks so people wouldn’t die from going underneath the sides of trucks:
This morning, I was taking a walk in the woods and saw a beautiful delicate & tiny lavender flower. I thought, “How fragile life is!” And I wept at how “easily” AnnaLeah & Mary lost their earthly lives. I am so thankful for the many minutes & hours & days & weeks & months & years that we had them with us and they got to enjoy life.
Earlier this morning, I had been remembering the time Jerry and I had taken Mary to a little lake in Rochester, MN, on Labor Day (2012). After 5 years in brown, arid West Texas, she was so delighted to be living someplace where she could have such fun in water. Jerry and I are so glad that we took her there that day.
How “easily” abortion robs a human of life. Who do we think we are to take life so lightly? Why do we think that it is our place to have a say in who will have life and who will not?
