The Anchoress
‘I’m not going to kill a healthy baby because I’m sick’
24 year-old Ashley Bridges, mom to her young son Braiden, was ten weeks pregnant when she discovered that she had an aggressive bone cancer:
Bridges underwent surgery to replace her knee and remove the majority of her femur. The doctors also said she should start chemotherapy immediately, but there was a very big risk. […]
“They told me what would likely happen to Paisley, that you know, she most likely wouldn’t make it and I just knew. It wasn’t a choice to me. It was like this is what needs to be done. She’s first. I’m not going to kill a healthy baby because I’m sick. There’s nothing wrong with her. Her life is just as important as mine if not more important. I mean as a mother my job is to protect my kids.”
Her daughter Paisley will be a year old in July, and Ashley has been told she will probably not be alive to see it, but she is a fighter:
“I am really pushing for Paisley’s first birthday. This is what I do. I do October, OK, I just got to make it to Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving comes around — OK, let’s just go to Christmas. Then Christmas comes and Braiden’s birthday is in March, so I’m going to make it to Braiden’s birthday. I’m just going to keep setting little goals for myself and we’ll see.”
I can’t help but feel like heroic motherhood should be met with a heroic prayer-effort on her behalf. We should storm heaven, and ask for the prayers of Saint Gianna Molla, of course.
But I wonder if we shouldn’t also ask for the prayers of another heroic mother, on Ashley’s behalf, Chiara Corbella of Rome, who died in 2012:
In 2010, Chiara became pregnant for the third time, and according to doctors the child was developing normally. However, Chiara was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and was advised to begin receiving treatment that would have posed a risk to her pregnancy.
Chiara decided to protect the baby – named Francisco – and opted to forgo treatment until after his birth, which took place on May 30, 2011.
Her cancer quickly progressed and eventually she lost sight in one eye. After a year-long battle Chiara died on June 13, surrounded by her loved ones and convinced that she would be reunited with her two children in heaven.
“I am going to heaven to take care of Maria and David, you stay here with Dad. I will pray for you,” Chiara said in a letter for Francisco that she wrote one week before her death.
What I wrote of Chiara in 2012, of the holy mystery in all of this still seems right, to me:
God’s complex ideas, when they are introduced to our personal lives, often seem like actions working “against all sense” because that’s what they are; they are meant to move us out of the idolatry of our own ideas, our own reasonings, our own minds, and enter us into his ideas, his reasonings, his mind. If we consent to it, then we are admitted into the staggering sweetness of his enraptured love for us, where the only real price is trust.
The world will never understand it, or appreciate the value of that trust — it cannot understand because it has not consented to that same all-loving capture; it is too afraid of the ransom.
Here is what Ashley said, last September: “maybe I’m not supposed to be here, and she is”.
Impressive and selfless.
I know nothing more about Ashley Bridges than what is available from CNN and this fundraising page, but I know the power of prayer; I know miracles happen, and Ashley’s mother, in supporting her daughter’s decision, told her, “it’s not over ’til it’s over…You never know. We might get that miracle.”
Well, if they’re open to a miracle, then why not help that along? Why not storm heaven for the sake of Ashley and her family? Why not ask the intercessory prayers of two mothers in heaven who know all about the decision she made — the real cost of her ransoming Paisley, and the rewards, as well?
Let’s pray!
Lord, the one you love is sick…it’s Ashley Bridges, whose love has been so great, and whose desire, in the wealth of your greatness and your mercy, is so very small. Have mercy upon this dying mother, O Divine Physician, as in scripture you had mercy on mothers and their dying children. In your manifold power, fulfill the promise of your own lips, Lord, “If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.” We ask now, on Ashley’s behalf — in all simplicity and with a most child-like faith — and for the sake of light, and of love, for real healing of body, mind and spirit, for Ashley and her family. Have mercy on me, a sinner, and give your blessings to this family. In your Holy Name, I pray.
I’m starting tonight and will continue, and I hope you will join me. There is no reason why, as we pray for Ashley Bridges, we can’t ask Chiara Corbella — whose own children are still so young — to intercede for her, from her place in eternity.
If you’re of a mind to pray for Ashley, let’s spread this around, share the story and the intention in social media and in our parishes. Make our petitions to Jesus Christ, the Divine Physician, who invited us to storm heaven all through scripture; let’s do it!
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