Sancta Caritas (St Charity) Introduction I am pleased you are reading this true account and it is my desire and hope that you will in some way be blessed as you read through it. We never really know when we arise each day, just exactly what God and life has in store for us. It’s usually just another day for us in our lives. We tend to already picture in our minds how this particular day will go for us. Little do we know or could we know that a particular day could have life changing results. Such was the case for my family and I on Tuesday, June 7th, 2005. Hi! My name is Mel Waller and I would like to introduce you to my Catholic family. I have been Catholic since my conversion to the one, true Catholic Faith in 1982 after many years of research and study. I was married in 1989 to my wife Milagros (Mila) R Waller. In June of 1992, we were blessed with our first child, Melomi Joy R. Waller, followed by Angelica Marie R. Waller in 1994 and Alexandra Jean Waller in 1996. Currently, I am home schooling my 3 girls. We attend the Latin Indult Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at the Basilica of St Francis Xavier in Dyersville, Iowa and when we are unable to make the 60 mile one way trip to Dyersville we attend the Novus Ordo Mass at St Andrew Church in Tennyson, Wisconsin. My wife works outside the home as an auditor and I sell new and used Catholic books online as well as publish (reprint) Catholic books from before 1960. It’s been a real blessing to be actively involved with my Catholic Faith in this way and to have the quality time with my children. I know in my heart that God prepared me for the day when June 7th, 2005 would finally arrive. Just before Lent 2005, I began spiritual reading for a couple of hours each night and have continued that to the present day. Among the Catholic works which I read during this time or am still reading as I write this book are: Uniformity with God’s Will by St Alphonsus Liguori, Practice of Christian and Religious Perfection by Fr Alphonsus Rodriquez, Vera Sapentia or True Wisdom by Thomas A Kempis, Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius, How to Converse Continually and Familiarly with God by St Alphonsus Liguori, Hell and It’s Torments by St Robert Bellarmine, The Soul of the Apostolate by Jean-Baptist Chautard, OCSO and others. All these Catholic writings along with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and prayer and devotions helped me by the grace of God to continue to transform my life, conforming my will more closely to God’s Will and fostering a better interior life than I have had heretofore. I am in no way a perfect person or a perfect Catholic. Far from it, I see myself as a great sinner who, but by the grace of almighty God would be eternally lost. We are so blessed as Catholics. We have a rich treasury of spiritual wealth and assistance at our disposal that is basically free for the taking. Do we avail ourselves of these helps? We have first and foremost, the Seven Sacraments. We have countless prayers and devotions, sacramentals, religious items, 2000 years of Catholic writings and Church teachings, Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, and countless Saints for our role models among other things. Do we really understand the value and the blessings that all of these treasures have to offer? The more I try to put into practice the spiritual wisdom I have learned, the more I realize just how much more I am lacking in my spiritual life. It really is a life long process. It shouldn’t end at Confirmation or some other point in our life, but should continue our entire lives. Our whole purpose on this earth is to know, love and serve the Lord and to spend eternity with Him and all the Saints and Angels in Heaven. This has to be our central focus in this life. Everything else revolves around this reality. June 7th, 2005 Tuesday, June 7th, 2005, a day like any other, or is it? We just never really know what to expect from day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. It seems like just another ordinary day. But in reality it is a day that will change my life and the lives of my family forever. Tuesday and Wednesday are my wife’s “weekend”. She has decided she will take our 3 girls swimming with some friends of hers today. The Platteville swimming pool doesn’t open until 4:30 pm so until then they go visit some friends and do some shopping. I remain at home working with my Catholic book apostolate/business. At close to 6:30 pm, I get a phone call from Mila’s friend, Mona and Mona turns over the phone to Mila. She is distraught and crying and says she is at the hospital. Thoughts begin running through my head as I am wondering who has had to go to the hospital and what their condition is. I am at first, thinking that perhaps one of my girls had an accident in the swimming pool so I quickly ask what has happened. Mila explains how she had all of a sudden became dizzy and couldn’t move so they called the ambulance and had her transported to the new hospital in Platteville, WI from the swimming pool. She had only just arrived there and she had no idea what the problem was at this point. She needed me to come to Platteville and pick up the girls who were still at the swimming pool with her other friends. I leave immediately for Platteville which is about a 20 minute drive from our home. I arrive at the swimming pool around 7 pm and the girls are waiting for me in the parking lot with my wife’s friends. They obviously know their mom has been taken to the hospital but they are doing well. They really don’t know what is wrong yet either. We arrive at the hospital and go to the receptionist for the emergency room. My wife is having tests done at the moment so we have to just sit and wait. Mona eventually comes out into the waiting area, but she doesn’t have any further information either as they await test results. She jokes that my wife is probably pregnant, but I honestly didn’t believe that was the cause. It had been a very hot and humid day and I was thinking more along the lines that it could have been heat stroke or some other heat related illness. I am finally able to go see and talk to Mila. She has no further information yet either. She asks me to take Mona back to the swimming pool so she can get her children and friends so they can go home as Mona had been brought to the hospital with Mila in the ambulance. So I agree and the girls and I take Mona back to the swimming pool and drop her off there. The girls and I then return to the hospital. The girls and I are only in the hospital waiting area just a few minutes when the Dr comes out and wishes to speak to me alone. We go to another room and sit down. I am not prepared for what he is about to tell me or at least I certainly don’t feel prepared. In one breath, the Dr tells me I have a new child. Oh, what joy! I have longed for a 4th child ever since my 3rd daughter was born in December 1996 and the wait is finally over. But in the next breath the Dr is telling me I have lost or I will lose this very same child that had just caused my heart to leap a moment before. I am stunned. I don’t know what to say. I can only listen as he continues to explain the situation as they know it at that time. It’s an ectopic pregnancy. The child is implanted in the fallopian tube. There is no chance of survival for the child. More testing is needed as there is the possibility that the tube has ruptured which would be life threatening to both mother and child. They are preparing to do an ultrasound for that purpose. There is discussion about our insurance coverage and whether we may have to go to Mercy Hospital in Dubuque, Iowa for surgery at some point. They’re going to look into that. I go back to the waiting area and explain to the girls what is happening and ask them to keep praying for their mom and now for their new sibling. We talk about what is happening. I am able to go talk to Mila while she waits to have her ultrasound. She asks me if the Dr has told me that she is pregnant and I tell her that he has explained everything so far. We talk a little while, then I have to go back to the waiting area. Time always seems to slow down in these kinds of situations as you are just looking for answers and the waiting seems to last forever. Mila gets back to her room and I am able to see her again. The doctors come in and explain to us that the tube has ruptured and that she has been bleeding internally and they will need to operate as soon as possible. They will be performing a laparoscopy. It’s possible they may have to do a more invasive surgery, but they won’t know that until the surgery is already underway. They need to call in the doctor for the surgery and get prepped. Now that I know they are going into surgery soon, I raise the issue of being able to have the child baptized. I explained to them it is absolutely essential that I have our child baptized as soon as possible and that if necessary I could do the baptism myself. They are more than willing to work with me on this and that in itself is a relief, but the issue remains a very big concern for me. I tell them that I will try to contact a Catholic priest to see if we can find one who is available to come to the hospital. I talk to Mila some more and then I go and the receptionist calls a Catholic priest in Platteville for me to talk to. I am able to talk with Fr Charles over the phone and I explain our situation to him and that sometime in the next few hours my wife will be having surgery and I would really like to have my child baptized. In discussing the issue, Father tries to explain how the Church’s teachings have changed regarding unbaptized children and that they all will go to heaven. I make it clear that I strongly disagree with what he says, but that this is not the time for that discussion and I simply wanted to have my child baptized. With that said, Father was more than willing to come to the hospital to do the baptism when we would be able to have access to the child. I will discuss the issue of baptism later in the book. After talking with Father, I let the Dr know that Father is willing to do the Baptism and I ask if they can help coordinate that. Then I go to talk to Mila again and let her know that a Catholic priest is willing to come and baptize the child. She wanted to be present and conscious for the baptism, but unfortunately that could be several hours after surgery and the child’s death and I believed we could not delay the baptism for that long of a period. The Church does not know how long the soul remains after a person has died and thus allows the sacrament of baptism in cases such as this, but we can not delay the baptism either and then risk it being to no avail. So it was agreed to perform the baptism at the earliest possible opportunity. I then asked Mila if she had any ideas for a name for our child. She didn’t and neither did I at the moment. I asked her if it would be alright for our 3 girls to perhaps choose the name. She thought that would be a good idea and so I went back out to the waiting area and asked the girls to choose a name. We were trying to come up with different names that were gender neutral. We got mentioning their names and in particular Melomi Joy’s name with Joy being one of the fruits of the Virtue of Charity. Faith, Hope and Charity were mentioned and Charity was selected as their name for the child. The third and greatest theological Virtue. In Latin it would be Caritas. It was fine by me and my wife also thought it was nice. So the child’s name would be Charity R. Waller. A point brought up by my daughter Angelica after we had selected the child’s name was the issue of a funeral which I had not even given that a thought yet, but it certainly was a very important point as so often the unborn child is not treated with the dignity of a human person as they all should be and often may simply be discarded. So I found our Dr and made it clear in no uncertain terms that we wanted to be able to have our child. He informed me that Wisconsin State Law required that the child would have to go to Pathology after surgery and it would be a few days before we could get the child back, but they would ensure that everyone along the way knew we wanted our child back so that we could have a funeral Mass and have the child buried. I called a good friend of my mom’s, Janet Stelpflug and informed her as to what was happening since she didn’t live too far from the hospital. It was around 9 pm by this point in time and she offered to come to the hospital to pick up the girls and take them home for the evening. My mom was living with us at the time so that wouldn’t be a problem. I was thankful Janet thought of the girls as that was something else I hadn’t considered yet and it might have been much later in the evening before I even thought about it. Sometimes its just hard to think when you have so many things coming at you all at once. You don’t even have time for the shock from the news to even wear off and things are constantly changing as the night progresses. I inform Mila that Janet will be coming to pick up the girls so we decide to allow each girl to come in individually to talk with their mother one more time before they go home. The girls are holding up well. I don’t believe they understand just how serious my wife’s condition could be, but I certainly don’t want to press the issue any further either. By about 9:30 pm, Janet has arrived and she comes and visits with Mila and I. After a short while, the girls go with her so they can get home. I assure them I will call them before they get to bed and give them another update on how their mother is doing which I do at about 11 pm. Between 10:00 and 10:30 pm, the doctors and anesthesiologist explain to us what the risks are of the surgery and everything they plan to do and also what they might have to do if there are any complications. We learn that there will be no birth or death certificate as Wisconsin state law requires the child to be at least 1 pound in weight. Our child was only a few weeks old and no where near that. Our child was about the size of the tip of your finger is all at this stage. Once the child would come back from pathology in a few days a funeral home would have to arrange to pick up the child. Again this was all because of WI state law. At 10:30 pm, they take my wife, and I follow along towards the surgery room where eventually I have to turn and go to the waiting area. Surprisingly this area of the hospital is virtually deserted. There isn’t a soul around. I try to collect my thoughts and I begin to pray to God that He would guide the doctors in what they needed to do, that He would comfort and console my wife and our family and friends as word of this news would eventually filter out. I prayed that God would allow me the opportunity to have the child, Charity baptized, preferably by the priest and the God would ensure that we would be able to have a funeral Mass and burial without any difficulties. I thanked God for the precious gift of this child that He had bestowed upon us. Then I began to realize of all the things I would not be able to do with Charity in this life and I was overwhelmed with emotion and sadness at this loss. I love children. I love my children and have always been willing to have as large a family as God would bless us with. It shouldn’t be about finances or abilities to care for more children. God will provide, but He isn’t going to provide what we need before we need it! No, we have to be faithful and trust in divine providence and the mercy and goodness of God. After about 10 minutes, I decided I would pray the Holy Rosary. I was going to pray the Sorrowful Mysteries as they have always been my favorite. In these mysteries Christ’s love is poured forth for our redemption. We should never forget nor take for granted what Christ and the Holy Trinity have done for us and continue to do for us. As I was praying along, I couldn’t remember the mysteries for each decade. It was like my brain was locked up. I finally just surrendered to the fact that I wasn’t going to remember the mysteries and I just prayed from the heart to God. Time really seemed slow as I am waiting for word from the doctors or a nurse to come. Finally around 11:40 pm, a nurse came to the waiting room and we went to the lobby where the priest was supposed to be arriving. Fr Charles had just arrived and the nurse gave him the child and Father and I went to the hospital chapel where he baptized Charity R. Waller at 11:50 pm on June 7th, 2005. I thanked Father and told him I would be in contact with him. It wasn’t until about 1:30 am that a nurse came to get me to take me to my wife’s room where she was in and out of consciousness as the anesthesia slowly wore off. She seemed fine otherwise and I stayed with her through the night. Every so often she would talk to me and then she would drift back off to sleep. This continued most of the night. By 7 am, she is fully alert and the doctors had told us they believed she would be released sometime in the afternoon if everything seemed fine. We decided that I should go home and get some rest and check on the girls and then come back to bring her home from the hospital later in the day which I do. Since we are going to have to wait a few days for the child to be returned from the Pathologists, we really don’t have a date we can yet select for the funeral Mass. With the experience of my father’s death and funeral on July 4, 1996, I know I am going to take whatever time we need to prepare. A number of issues have to be decided. The funeral Mass itself, where to bury the child, finding an appropriate coffin for the child…etc. These issues seem to revolve around where to bury the child as much as anything. Even though we attended the Latin Indult, we would not be able to Latin Funeral Mass and Dyersville, Ia is 60 miles away. I then realized where I would ideally like to see my child buried if at all possible and if we could obtain permission. I scheduled an appointment to talk to the priest. I honestly had a sense that I would be turned down, but we have to at least try and make the effort. So finally I am sitting down talking with the priest where we sometimes attended the Novus Ordo Mass. I also was a member of the Knights of Columbus in this community although we lived in the next town 7 miles away. I explained to Father Leffler that we had lost Charity suddenly and that I desired for the child to be buried at Sts Andrew-Thomas cemetery. Then I began discussion by going back about 10 years in time while I was a member of the Knights of Columbus (K of C). I talked about how I had suggested to the K of C, that it would be nice to establish a Memorial to the Unborn. It was an idea that had been considered before, but was cost prohibitive. It was and is something also that is done by many councils throughout the K of C as it is a very pro-life organization. I requested the opportunity to see if I would be able raise funds for a memorial and that I would report back to them. I also needed to get an estimate as to the cost of a possible memorial. A nice memorial could be done for about $2000 to $2500. Within 3 days, I had pledges of about $800 and there was plenty of opportunity to successfully raise more money. I also began working on a design for the memorial to present at the next K of C council meeting. This would also allow me to fine tune the projected costs for the memorial. The project was approved at the next meeting and the K of C agreed they would have a dinner with proceeds to go towards the memorial. Within just a few short months, we were able to raise the necessary funds to make the memorial a reality. The parish cemetery donated the plot. The monument company donated the artwork on the stone. We were able to place the memorial in front of the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine where it would have a high profile in that area of the cemetery. This led me up to asking Father if there was any possibility of having my child, Charity buried at the memorial. Father granted his permission and I must admit I was taken aback. I just wasn’t expecting for whatever reason to receive permission for this. Thanks be to God - Deo Gratias! If someone had told me 10 years earlier that my very own child would be buried at the Memorial to the Unborn that I had worked at establishing, I don’t know what I would have thought or if that thought would have stopped me from doing anything. God’s Providence in action! Father will be gone the following week and gives me contact info so I can make arrangements with the priest who will be filling in for Father while he is away. Although God already knew the answer to this question, do you know who the priest was who would be filling in for Fr Leffler? It was Fr Charles! The very same priest who baptized Charity! The blessings I received through this time just kept pouring upon me. I contacted a Bendorf Funeral Home in Platteville, WI to make arrangements to accept Charity once the hospital had received the child back from the Pathologists. They were most gracious and helpful and didn’t charge us anything for their assistance. There was no real preparation that was necessary once we received Charity back so I was able to pick the child up from Bendorf’s and take the child home to be with us until the funeral. Just prior to this, I searched the internet trying to find where I could locate a child’s coffin. I found that the New Melleray Abbey in Peosta, Ia had hand made wooden caskets made there by the Trappist Monks. I went there to look them over and they had 1 walnut infant casket in stock and I was able to get it with just a small down payment as we really didn’t have the funds. I was able to pay them back over the next couple of months, but they were so gracious to allow us to have the casket without full payment and it was the only one left in stock. So with that walnut casket, we picked up Charity and placed the child in the casket right away and went home. There I set up the casket in a make shift altar I had and it remained there until the funeral Mass. Each of the girls and I before the funeral selected items that we included in the casket. For my part, I wrote a letter to my child, Charity and it had to be the most difficult letter I have ever written. I never imagined the emotions that would flow from writing that letter to my child. I feel so blessed to have done so. We decided to have basically a more private funeral Mass so with the exceptions of immediate family we didn’t make any one aware the funeral Mass. A few local parishioners turned out and some members of the local Knights of Columbus graciously assisted as pallbearers. Fr Charles even added some prayers in Latin for the Funeral Mass which was held on June 15th, 2005, my daughter Melomi Joy’s birthday. There we were watching our child, Charity be buried and I couldn’t help but see Divine Providence in so many things that had occurred over the last week or so and even in the 10 years before when I first started working to have a Memorial to the Unborn where my very own unborn child was now being laid to rest. Charity (Caritas), Rest in Peace - Requiescat in Pace. St Charity, Pray for us! Amen Sancta Caritas, Ora Pro Nobis! Amen I would like to add another followup note to this. We've been under serious financial constraints for some time and we were unable to afford to have Charity's name and date of death placed on the memorial. In Jan, 2006, after talking about this all with an online friend that I had the opportunity to meet, he suggested that he would send the necessary funds to have this done and in a short time, the check arrived to take care of this. I would once again like to take the opportunity to thank Fr Sam for his generosity. May God Bless you! Without making judgments on anyone, in the weeks that followed it was interesting and sad to learn of children who were miscarried or who died before they could be born who were nameless, who may have never had a funeral, who are not acknowledged as having been part of a family, this, even among Catholics. There is one among many battles raging across the world today which are the pro-life issues we all face today. The battle for the lives of the unborn are one of them. Life begins at conception! It is a child, not a choice. And should be treated as a human being in every respect. And its not too late to change things. An unnamed child that has been lost can still be given a name. Count them as part of your family always. I always make it a point to tell people I have 4 children. 3 on earth and one in heaven. If in any way possible all unborn children who have died or been miscarried should be baptized. You as a parent can do it yourself if necessary. It is through the Sacrament of Baptism that Original Sin is washed away and we are made members of Christ’s Church, the Catholic Church. Please don’t assume that a child who is without actual sin will just automatically go to heaven. That is not a teaching of the Catholic Church despite what some members of the Church may claim. Baptism remains the only sure way that an unborn child or a young child will go to heaven if they should die. Catholic Doctrine, properly understood can not change. It could be because of culture or how people use language that reality gets distorted in the progress. One thing, my girls and I have done is we now calculate our ages based on our approximate conception date, rather than our birthdays (which we still celebrate). When an average child is born it is already approx 9 months old and will be one year old in just 3 short months after being born. We need to acknowledge that and incorporate that into our own language. The pro-life vs. pro-choice war is as much about semantics or the words we use as anything else. We need to reclaim language and make it as specific and accurate as possible to drive home the truth. As Catholics, a baptized child that has died before the age of reason whereby there are no actual sins that have been committed is now in heaven. We have our own personal Saints and we should avail ourselves of them. Who better to look out for you family than a Saint from your very own family! I pray to St Charity often. We include St Charity in our family rosary. I firmly believe St Charity has indeed been looking out for us and has assisted me on countless occasions. Deo Gratias! Some seemingly contradictory laws. In Wisconsin, we were not allowed to have a birth certificate because the child was too young and not of sufficient weight. Yet, in order to get our child back from the hospital after the pathologists were finished, the child needed by state law to be handed over to a funeral home. For Federal tax purposes, we were able to claim the child on our Federal taxes and was reported as deceased. I hope that you were somehow touched or blessed by this. It has forever changed my life. For those who may feel hurt or somehow feel guilty for whatever reason. Take your hurts to Christ. Do what you can to undo any damage that might have been done. Seek reconciliation with God through the Sacrament of Confession if need be. Then forgive yourself! The one thing certain in this life is we will make our fair share of mistakes, but we can learn from our mistakes, shortcomings and even our sins and grow stronger in Christ and in our Catholic Faith. May God Bless you! The End Home Sponsored by St Athanasius Press