The night before this year’s March for Life, I almost decided not to go. I heard about the crazy storm that was supposed to arrive that very day, and I didn’t want to be stranded. Since I was traveling on a bus with Franciscan University, we’d have about a six hour drive back from the March. I called my mom, asking what I should do. After all, I heard of so many parishes from Northern Virginia (where I live and only about an hour outside of DC), cancelling their buses. But Franciscan never canceled theirs. My mom talked to the man in charge of the buses, and said we were going to go around the storm. Since my mom reassured me, I felt better about going and decided to after all.
The March was wonderful and it didn’t start snowing until about when we started or after we started marching. We even left DC earlier than we planned so we would make it back safely. However, as we drove on, the snow began to pile up and our driver drove very slowly. We stopped for a bit because one of the other (out of the 8 buses that went) buses broke down. We started traveling again, but around 10:30 that night we stopped again. This time we wouldn’t budge for over 30 hours.
Apparently there was an accident on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, backing up miles worth of traffic. We were there for the whole night, and when I woke up in the morning we were still there. The snow had piled up and even if the traffic cleared, we wouldn’t have been able to move since we were stuck in the snow.
At this point I kept telling myself I shouldn’t have gone. My poor best friend was next to me on the bus and had to listen to my complaints. I was mad at my mom for telling me it was okay to go. I was mad at my university for deciding to go even though it wasn’t safe and so many other parishes and universities had canceled theirs. We were stuck on that bus all night on Friday and all day and night on Saturday. I couldn’t shower and I was so cramped I just wanted to be back at my dorm. However, we were so blessed.
The fire department and national guard were so helpful to us. They brought us subs, water bottles, pizza, and even the MRE meals. The buses were heated. We even watched a few movies, Monsters University, Gimme Shelter, and The Dark Knight. Everyone had such joyful attitudes and we prayed rosaries and morning and evening prayer. We had a little restroom.
On Sunday morning, our bus was dug out of the snow and we started moving again. I was ecstatic. In the afternoon, we made it home to Franciscan. I literally ran to my dorm and I was surprised that others didn’t run.
At the time, even after we made it back I said that it was not worth it. But now, looking back, it wasn’t that bad. Of course the experience wasn’t pleasant, but all of the students stuck on the bus brought so much redemptive suffering. Not only that, but the news media covered it as well. We were able to give a voice for the unborn, and show just how much we cared about this cause. Even if there was a massive snowstorm, we still went anyway because this means so much to us. We had heat, food, water, and a toilet. I’d say that it was worth it, because we were able to march and give a voice to the voiceless.