Newsletter – September 2024

My son Jared was five years old when I started A Baby’s Breath. I was expecting his baby sister, Victoria, home-schooling Jared and his older brother Josh at the time. Tom, his younger brother, was happily enjoying being the spotlight of the family’s attention. Our life was blissfully peaceful, so why would I choose to accept the position as Founder/President & Director of A Baby’s Breath? The choice was easy, it was made of love for my life.

My life that God gave me was brimming with joy at the time. As any new parent will attest, the joy of seeing their children for the first time motivates you through the sleepless nights and the challenges that all children bring. What made my situation different was that I had friends and colleagues who didn’t choose the same path for life. Their lives were perhaps more financially stable, but mine was filled with absolute joy.

Upon embarking on the journey 24 years ago, on August 15th, 2000, I didn’t anticipate the growth our organization would experience. We opened three centers in five years and after starting the 5th center, a home in Phoenixville, I asked my spiritual director if I should write the recipe for starting crisis centers in a book and he said, you should write a book about yourself. This started the process of writing my first book, Creating Compassionate Places.

The first version of my book was not publishable. It was too personal and a priest friend who reviewed it said so. I had a writer friend give me the suggestion to think of my life like spokes on a bicycle. Each spoke represented the key parts of my life that God used to form me and eventually, the wheel that formed the organization called A Baby’s Breath.

Fast forward, 24 years later, my son Jared who is married to a lovely woman Bridget and they have a beautiful little girl Collette born on Dec 13th, St. Lucy’s Feast day, wanted to give back to me all the gifts he’s learned from the experience of growing up in a home that was open to life and God. I am humbled by his undertaking of creating podcasts that will, God willing, be the subject material of a movie. It is the reward of my time well spent in the service of God.