My life had always responded to my will and even my whim. The times of my life were dictated by me. During high school I had a great time. I didn’t try very hard but I got by. Any girlfriends I’d had I broke it off with them. I never had my heart broken. In college I studied hard and had lots of fun. And when it came to finding a wife I looked for an Irish Catholic accounting major and found exactly who I wanted. I married her shortly after graduating. When I looked for a career after college I walked into a newspaper and told them I’d work seven nights a week for free for a month and if they liked what I wrote they could start paying me. They did.

It’s not that everything came easy necessarily, much of it required hard work. But it came on my time table.

With the introduction of children, my life didn’t correspond exactly to my schedule. Feeding time. Fussy time. Burping time. None of these times were times I scheduled. But I was a stay-at-home father working from home and I had my children on a schedule. And we stuck to the plan.

They always say if you want to make God laugh make a plan. Well, I didn’t hear God laugh that morning in March 2002 when the baby didn’t cry in the morning. I’d spent so much time trying to quiet babies that it took a while to realize the moment when the silence from the bassinet was the kind of silence that makes parents stop whatever they’re doing and come running…Continue reading at the National Catholic Register>>>