April 2019 Issue

Whenever Kyle Kramer’s column, “At Home on Earth,” lands in my inbox for proofreading, I am of two minds.

UNPLANNED Abby (Ashley Bratcher) is a junior at Texas A&M University in 2001 when she attends a volunteer fair. She signs up to help women in crisis at Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas, because she knows what women go through.

I am mildly obsessed with all things organizational—planners, office supplies, boxes, baskets, bins. If it can make my life more efficient or cleaner, I’m all in. The disconnect, however, comes in the execution and use of those products.

I wanted to be Dorothy Day long before I’d ever heard of her. As a teenager, I was volunteering in an assisted-living home while my peers were hanging out in shopping malls; as a college student I was doing internships in African orphanages and mentoring at-risk kids in my community.

Why is it so hard for some people to maintain a spirit of celebration? I ask this knowing that I am one such person.

For 16 days in January 2015, a teenage boy lay in the pediatric ICU in St. Louis, Missouri. He struggled to survive a catastrophic accident and, along the way, experienced a series of miracles.