Each of us can be a beacon of hope One Bright Light for Life.(euthansia)

As NRLC's Membership Development Director, I often receive very powerful and moving stories from our members, tales of lives saved, sacrifices made, victories won in defense of life. There are far too many to relate, but they always give me confidence that our movement has the tremendous dedication needed to prevail and return our society to a respect for all human life.

This includes the unborn, of course, but also those who are born and face special challenges. Their stories remind us that every life is a gift not only to the person living it, but to the rest of us as well.

I thought of this as I read the story of Joanne Walsh, a long-time pro-life activist from Eaton, Ohio, who passed away last year.

At age 17, just as she was to enter her senior year in high school, Joanne was stricken with polio. She spent 23 days in an iron lung and five more months in recuperation and therapy before being allowed to return home. She would never walk again.

Nevertheless, she worked hard, caught up in her studies, and graduated with her senior class. Confined to a wheelchair at a time when few buildings were easily accessible, Joanne attended college and was married shortly after her graduation in 1954. I'll let her husband, Robert, tell the rest of the story:

"Our union produced five children, all of whom she raised from her wheelchair, without assistance. Only God knows how she did it. Going off each day to my job as a public school teacher I left with full confidence that she was equal to the task.

"Joanne was a strong, brave woman but she was frightened by those who would `improve' the world by getting rid of all those deemed undesirable by some, such as the handicapped, elderly, `unwanted' children, and so forth. So in 1987 we helped start Right to Life of Preble County here in Eaton, and for the first four years she served as secretary-treasurer.