Sometimes our kids ask the best questions.
And coming down here today, my daughter asked, why do we give an honorary degree?
So I explained to her, I wanna remind you that we give an honorary degree because somebody here today like Micheline Fredenberg, we wanna put her out in front of you as an example of someone who has accomplished great things so that later in life, maybe tomorrow, maybe in five, ten, or fifteen years, when you're struggling, when you're trying to accomplish something, when you're looking for some motivation, you'll remember the example of Michelin Fredenberg.
So then she asked me another question, which was similar.
And that was, well, if she just comes here and gets an honorary doctorate, won't all the other students have worked so hard be jealous?
And I think the answer to that is similar to the first answer, which is just try to work as hard as Michalene has worked.
Michalene founded Life Perspectives, which provides reproductive loss training and other resources to health professionals, including hospitals, medical professionals, therapists, social workers, and pregnancy centers, as well as community and faith leaders.
Without religious or political affiliation, Life Perspectives is approved by the National Association of Social Workers and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education.
Life Perspectives is also nationally accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center and by the State of California Board of Registered Nursing as a continuing education provider.
In the past year alone, life perspectives has helped over 73,000 hurting men and women with hope and healing with nonjudgmental care and has trained over 2,100 community leaders and health care professionals.
Miss Friedenberg has authored the book Changed, Making Sense of Your Own or Loved One's Abortion Experience.
The booklets Changed, Hope After Loss, and edited the book Grief and Abortion, Creating a Safe Place to Heal.
She has also written numerous articles about reproductive grief and loss and has participated in over 100 radio and television programs.
In gratitude for the generous spirit that shines through your work, it is my honor today to bestow on missus Michalene Fredenberg the doctor of humane letters, honoris causa.
Thank you, father Sikorsky, mister Cunningham, Divine Mercy University board of directors, faculty, staff, graduates, your family, and friends.
This is an incredible honor.
It's hard to describe.
It's actually really quite overwhelming to have your life's work recognized in this fashion, especially from individuals and an institution that I hold in the highest regard.
It's not by chance that you decided to study at Divine Mercy University, an institution of the highest integrity, a community that honors and respects the whole person, a community dedicated to formation and the gift of self.
It's humbling to be standing in front of individuals who have chosen to embark upon a life of service, a life of emptying yourselves for others.
A difficult path for certain, but one filled with tremendous joy and deep fulfillment.
I would imagine that some of you've chosen this path, but for others that path chose you.
My work at life perspective certainly falls into the latter category.
More than that, it was actually the result of a series of disastrous decisions resulting in tragic consequences.
You see, when I was an 18 year old ballroom dancer, I chose to terminate a pregnancy that was threatening my career.
The consequences of my life were devastating, and it radically changed me.
After I was able to grieve and find some sense of peace with the help of trusted friends and some professional assistance, I slowly became aware of the depth of the pain and the silent suffering that was all around me.
With two million losses every year in The United States through miscarriage and abortion, the number of men, women, family members, and friends who've been impacted by reproductive loss is tremendous.
And while these losses occur very differently, the grief, the shame, the secrecy, even the guilt is very similar.
These individuals often suffer silently as our culture ignores their loss and seemingly is unaware of their pain.
As I began to share my story in the hope of breaking this pervasive silence, men and women shared their stories with me, and they became my teachers.
They taught me how to communicate with compassion and empathy.
They taught me how to listen.
They showed me the depth of their shame and taught me how to create a safe place for them to tell their story.
A place where their loss could be acknowledged, where they could begin to grieve, where they would be assured that their children would not be forgotten.
It's a privilege like no other to be permitted to get a glimpse of somebody's private pain.
To be trusted with such a deeply personal and stigmatized experience.
These are truly sacred moments.
I would imagine that you've already experienced similar moments.
Honor them and recognize that when we give, it's reciprocal.
We gain as much as we give.
In fact, I think that we gain a lot more than we're ever able to give.
The more that we seek to empty ourselves, the more that we're filled.
This doesn't mean that it will be easy.
My husband can attest to the long hours, the frustrations, the sleepless nights, the times that I'm exhausted and crabby.
There are the times that I feel that I can't go on.
Times of great disappointment, discouragement, and outright failures.
While I haven't yet experienced shipwreck or stoning, I have faced lawsuits, personal and professional attacks, near bankruptcy and betrayal.
And it's the betrayal of those that I thought were my friends that hurt the most.
However, I'm now at a place in my life where I don't regret any of those ordeals.
Those trials, the suffering, they shaped me and they formed me, and I'd like to think that they've made me more.
I certainly know that they've made life perspectives more.
Suffering has kept me and life perspectives grounded in humility, compassion, and love.
These qualities gained, if you will, through fire have enabled us to work with an amazingly diverse group of individuals and organizations.
Often, they don't have very much in common.
Sometimes they're even adversaries, but we're able to do this because we meet in a very human place, a place where we all agree that if someone is suffering, we wanna help them.
I am touched by the kindness, really the goodness that exists when we can focus on a person, on one person rather than a crowd or an agenda.
When we can be truly present with that one person, when we can respond with compassion, our differences evaporate, at least for the moment.
Over the past dozen years, Life Perspectives has had the privilege of assisting over a half million men and women on our healing websites.
We've also had the privilege of training a growing number of professionals to provide reproductive grief care for their patients and their clients.
We traveled to Ukraine.
Our healing resources have been translated into multiple languages.
We've attracted the most amazing team who are working together toward the day when there will one day be a widespread adoption of a standard of care around reproductive loss, and we're increasingly recognized as a global leader in reproductive grief care.
Now all of that is amazing to me.
It's astonishing.
And while people congratulate me on our success, I am mindful that life perspectives was born out of pain, really at a death.
Out of the one decision that I regret the most.
I'm also mindful that success is not determined by numbers.
It's about the one.
The one person who we have the privilege to serve, that you have the privilege to serve.
So today as we recognize your hard work, as we congratulate you on all that you have accomplished, and as you begin this next part of your adventure, please remember that there is one person who needs you.
One person who is longing for your kindness, for your compassion.
One person who desperately wants to know that they are not alone.
That they are accepted and loved just as they are.
You are needed.
You are absolutely necessary, and you will and you are bringing hope to this one person.
And in doing so, you're bringing hope to a hurting world.
Thank you.