After several weeks on the farm, we moved into a hotel in Des Moines to be closer to the office as the straw poll approached. Once again, we packed up, unpacked, and set up everything. The process was tedious. In addition to unpacking, Bridget and Erin helped me sanitize all the surfaces in our hotel room, set up an air filter, and clean Bella’s supplies. She was a happy camper throughout the process. She became our campaign mascot, our “Energizer Bunny,” because when we spent time with her, we felt inspired and ready to work. Bella reminded us of one of the most personal reasons we were in this race: to fight for the lives of children like her, both inside the womb and outside of it. And Bella’s smiles, bouncing, and clapping hands always made us laugh.
After many hard months of preparation and work, the straw poll finally arrived. An important event for all the candidates, it evolved into a sort of large, political fairground. A national debate preceded the event, and to my frustration, Rick was put at the end of the stage and given very few questions. They had arranged the seating and questions based on their polls. During the debate I kept looking over at my children and saw the disappointment in their faces that their father had been marginalized. Rick is so good on his feet and a truly excellent debater, so I kept praying that he would be given more chances to have his voice heard as time went on. Despite the obstacles, Rick made a respectable showing at the straw poll, coming in fourth out of a large swath of candidates.
Suddenly, however, our primary concern became Bella. As our last days in Iowa neared, Bella developed a cold that quickly went into her lungs. She wasn’t critically sick, but I wanted to get her out of the hotel, where I couldn’t control what she was exposed to through the shared air system. Now that Bella was older, I knew she was stronger, but we needed to get her home. The day after the straw poll, we left Iowa and drove home. Bella took the trip like a champ and was soon happily back in her familiar world.
That fall I came to understand I was sharing my husband with the state of Iowa. He spent a lot of time in New Hampshire and South Carolina. He spent the bulk of his time, though, in the Hawkeye State. The Iowa Caucus was January 3, and our kitchen calendar displayed a countdown of the remaining days. Rick conducted many town hall meetings and spoke candidly and intelligently about the issues. He was genuine and never wrote down a speech because all his words came straight from his mind and heart.
In the modern-day world of politics, where too frequently candidates are over-rehearsed and groomed, Rick’s authenticity was refreshing. He also held many meet and greets in barbecue restaurants and Pizza Ranches. These were our favorite types of events. Because these initial events were smaller, we could meet with people and talk with them. Rick and I grew up very simply and loved being with salt-of-the-earth folks who were sincere and genuine.
I did my share of campaigning, but as the mother of seven, including a little girl with disabilities, I could not be out on the campaign trail full time. I held down the home front, making meals; keeping up with the laundry; getting the kids to school, music lessons, and sports; getting them together with their friends; caring for and getting Bella to all her doctor and therapy appointments; and doing everything else that goes into a day in the life of a mother. Life was busy, but our home was running smoothly.
I remember sitting at many of the debates thinking I wished someone would do a day in the life of a presidential candidate’s wife who has seven children, including a little girl with disabilities. As any busy mother can relate, just walking out the door to get to an event takes so much preparation and organization. And I’m not talking about just me, but also about the kids’ schedules and providing for all their needs in my absence. Sometimes my biggest challenge was trying to go from mommy mode to professional “my husband is running for president” mode! I would throw on a dress, and as I was traveling to my first event, I’d be checking my ears to make sure my earrings were in, that everything was buttoned and tucked, and that no mysterious stains from sticky fingers had made their way onto my clothes. Rick and I remember pressing our clothes in hotel rooms at 2:00 a.m. only to have to turn around and leave at 6:00 a.m.
To get through the rigors of the campaign while keeping the family stable took a lot of patience and love. During the campaign, loving my husband, my family, and my country demanded patience, because we were on a runaway train. The pace and stress of the campaign were overwhelming, and the attacks were malicious. People assume that the hardest part of the campaign is the character assassination, but I tell them I was raised to be tough and can handle the attacks and stress. My greatest cross was having to leave my children, especially Bella.
When I returned from any of my trips, my children’s hugs healed me and reminded me what was most important in life, that love is selfless and enduring. I often read this passage and found it a great source of strength: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Cor. 13:4–7). We could feel Christ’s presence. He was there giving us the grace and fortitude for the journey. There was a joyful calm and a selfless, loving attitude in my home that could only have come from heaven.
Another terrible cross for Rick and me was to be away from each other. He had never really traveled much in the course of our marriage. One night, as we were talking on the phone, I told him how much I missed him. Rick got choked up and said, “Honey, you’re missing just me, but I miss eight of you!” Rick scheduled his trips so he could always get home to recharge his batteries.
We made sure our home was a refuge from the world. The kids did their inside chores so the house would look nice. John and Daniel would mow the grass; Sarah, Peter, and Patrick would weed the flowerbeds; and Elizabeth and I would cook and bake. In the cold months, we loved welcoming Rick home with warm oatmeal or chocolate chip cookies and a fire in the fireplace. As soon as Rick walked through the door, he’d be greeted with an abundance of hugs and kisses.
The campaign demanded a great degree of patience from all of us, but love is patient. Rick’s love for his country and our family inspired him to join the race, and he patiently took every day as it came, even though he missed his family. My tests of patience came in many forms, but they predominantly surfaced when I missed my husband at home.
Furthermore, throughout all the stress, the children were patient with their busy parents. They joyfully sacrificed because they believed in their father and this nation. And perhaps most noble of all, Bella smiled through all the chaos, the traveling, and many unbearably tight hugs from one of us who needed comfort. She was patient. She always is.
12
LOVE REQUIRES VULNERABILITY
• Rick Santorum •
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
—C. S. LEWIS, THE FOUR LOVES
It was November 19, 2011, my son John’s nineteenth birthday, but I wasn’t at a birthday party or even with him that night. I was in a church in Des Moines, Iowa. It was the Saturday night before Thanksgiving, and I was at a presidential debate sponsored by the leading cultural conservative group in Iowa, the Family Leader. The debate was different from the other twenty-one in that there were no time limits on answers, and there was a conservative moderator and a relaxed round-table atmosphere.
It was the most comfortable debate I had ever attended in all my time in politics. That should have sent off a red flag as I was sitting there. Over the cou
rse of my career, I have ended up saying some of the most flippant and, I might add, dumbest things when a friendly reporter was interviewing me. Any of you who have been interviewed by a reporter may notice that reporters couldn’t be nicer to you as they ask you questions. Warning: the nicer they are, the more dangerous they are!
Well, the moderator, Frank Luntz, unlike all the other debate moderators I have ever experienced, was friendly and engaging and asked heartfelt, interesting questions that revealed sides of the candidates I wasn’t even aware of. I suspect all the above was why I answered one particular question with such a personal story—a story about my relationship with Bella. I knew Karen, my campaign team, and I had long ago made a decision to keep her out of the public eye for a variety of reasons, but when he asked the question about a specific challenge that had impacted my life or my faith, all I could think of was my journey with Bella.
Herman Cain was the first to answer the question. I had not heard the story of his battle with cancer and the role his wife had played in it, so I pushed the Bella story back down in my memory to focus on his answer. Next, Rick Perry told his hardscrabble life story. It is a great story, but I had heard it several times, so I started debating in my mind whether I even wanted to answer this question, since there was no requirement to do so. Given the nature of the audience who was in attendance and watching on TV, this was probably the best question of the night for people of faith to gain some insight into both a candidate’s faith and his or her character. How could I pass it up?
Both Herman and Rick had received a warm reception from the crowd from their, at times, emotional testimonies. Ron Paul jumped in next with his life story that was more factual than heartfelt, followed by Michelle Bachmann’s story of her commitment to Christ, which I had also heard numerous times. During those two answers I decided not to do my personal testimony. I had already covered some of my journey in an earlier answer, and it was what everyone else was doing. Finally, I knew I couldn’t do it well in a couple of minutes.
I didn’t want to tell my story of Bella, but the only other story that came to mind was the challenge of losing Gabriel. Here again, I had shared that story many times with audiences around the country and in my book It Takes a Family and in Karen’s book Letters to Gabriel. I knew from experience, however, that just because you have told a story hundreds of times, it is very likely that it will be the first time the present audience has heard it.
So I started to get comfortable with the idea of talking about Gabriel. I had told it before, I could do it in a few minutes, it answered the question, and it would give the audience an insight into my faith and our personal life without plowing new ground for the press to dig into. I had decided. I would tell the challenge to our faith that came from losing our son Gabriel.
As Michelle finished her answer, I looked out into the audience at my daughter Elizabeth and thought of Karen. She had been at every debate so far, but tonight she was home. Bella had come down with a cold, and while it was not life threatening, there was no way she was going to leave her bedside. It brought a flood of memories of Bella and her illnesses. It’s hard to explain what went through my mind in those few moments as Michelle finished her answer to applause, but a wave came over me.
Everyone else had told stories they had told in some cases dozens of times before, and I was about to do the same thing. I felt called to share something raw and unrehearsed—something real. Even though Gabriel’s story is deeply personal and profoundly affected my life, I had traveled the path of telling that story. Even though I relive that experience emotionally every time I tell it, it isn’t the same as telling it the first time.
What finally tipped the scales to talk about Bella was vulnerability. As I listened to each one of these stories about how the candidates gave their lives to Christ or personal challenges they had overcome, no one really exposed his or her personal failings or weaknesses. None had answered in the spirit of the question to reveal a part of himself or herself that showed a flaw in faith or character.
After Michelle’s applause, Frank Luntz said, “Senator, you don’t have to.”
I responded, “No, I thought about trying to fulfill your obligation for some confession.”
I have viewed the video of this debate more than once, and the shots of me while the others were speaking confirmed my recollection that I was not listening intently, but struggling in my own mind for the right story to tell. That internal struggle came out in the tone of my answer. It was, as I said, confessional.
I began, “I was the author of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, and I remember being on the floor of the Senate many, many nights, talking about all these children who were disabled—who were the target of partial-birth abortions. These were children who—it was found out late in pregnancy that they had a problem, so their mothers wanted to have a late-term abortion. I would go on for hours and hours talking about the courage of parents who would fight [the doctors] just so their children could be born [alive].
“After I left the United States Senate, Karen and I were blessed with another child. Right before the end of the pregnancy, we found that there might be some problems. So, a long story short, Karen delivered our baby, Isabella Maria, early. They immediately took her to NICU and did some testing. Four days later they told us she had a fatal condition and was going to die. She had a condition called Trisomy 18, which is like Down syndrome; Trisomy 21 is Down syndrome. It was Trisomy 18, which is far worse. They said she’s lucky to be alive; there is only a 10 percent survival rate at birth. And of the children who survive, 90 percent die in the first year, most in the first few weeks or months.
“Well, we decided to do everything we could; she was our daughter; we were going to help her. And she did well. She sailed through the NICU and after ten days, we decided there was nothing more they could do for her, so we took her home. I’ll never forget the pediatrician doing the exit interview with us. He kept saying to us, ‘You know, you realize that your child is going to die.’ I said, ‘We have the Internet. Yes, we know all about this disorder.’ And he talked about how it would probably be a lung problem. She would probably die because of respiratory failure. And so Karen suggested that we should maybe have a prescription for oxygen if she needed some help. The doctor looked at her and said, ‘You have to learn to let go.’ I said, ‘All we’re asking for is oxygen,’ and he said the same thing to me. Well, then Momma Bear stood up and [interrupted by applause]. So after we got the prescription for oxygen [laughter], we left and went home.
“We went home on hospice care. Little Bella did amazingly well for the first few months, but then she got a cold. She got sick, and that’s a killer for children like this. And it was for her in the sense that she quickly went downhill, and before we knew it, her heart had stopped and she had stopped breathing. Karen was able to do CPR. We got the EMTs; we got her to the emergency room. She did okay. She came back, but then a couple of months later, she had the same thing happen.
“This time I was home holding her when it happened. I’ll never forget seeing her fail, not being able to breathe. We had a monitor on her. She stopped breathing, and I put her on the bed, and I tried to do everything I could to try to get her to start breathing again. The next thing I know, Karen comes knocking me out of the way with an Ambu bag and does CPR and Bella comes back again.
“We went to the hospital emergency room. And there she is lying on a table. She’s about five months old. And she has her hand out on the emergency room gurney. And I went over and I reached her—reached out and held her finger. For the five months leading up to this, I had been the rock in the house. I was the guy who held everything together. Karen always asked, ‘How can you be so—’
“I said, ‘Well, you know, I’m just—this is how I deal with things.’ And it was a lie; it was a lie. I decided that the best thing I could do was to treat her differently and not love her (like our other children) because it wouldn’t hurt as much if I lost her. I was holding that finger,
looking at her and realizing what I’d done. I’d been doing exactly what I had fought against with partial-birth abortion. I had seen her as less of a person because of her disability. And I prayed at that moment: Please, please let her live. I’ll do everything to commit to her, and not just her, but to every child like her . . .
“And so one of the reasons I’m here tonight is because . . . of ‘Obamacare.’ We’ve gotten involved in the world of special needs. Bob and Darla [Vander Plaats, chairman of the Iowa Family Leader] can tell you all about it; I’m sure they know it’s a different world. And it’s a world that, with socialized medicine, for children like Bella and Bob and Darla’s son and others like them who I’m sure are in this room, they will not get the care they need. I will fight to make sure that happens. I will honor them.” [Applause.]
I recently watched the video of my answer, and it was clear I was being vulnerable and authentic in telling of my relationship with Bella in her first few months of life. Then it dawned on me that the story itself was a story all about vulnerability. I had held back on giving myself fully to Bella because she was supposed to die. Having gone through that heart-wrenching pain of losing Gabriel, I believed I could minimize the pain if I just held back and didn’t commit fully to a relationship with her. I walled off a part of my heart so it wouldn’t be vulnerable, so I wouldn’t get hurt.
That night in the emergency room, having almost lost her again and seeing her hanging on to her life by a thread, I realized that treating her differently, loving her less, being less vulnerable would only lead to more pain. I would have missed whatever opportunity and for however long a time to love her completely. I was missing the joy that comes with the completely selfless loving of my gift from God. I would miss the memories of those times and the comfort for the rest of my life in knowing I gave Bella my best.
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