Years ago, I asked my confessor if I should include in my confession my habit of watching boxing and mixed martial arts matches. “It’s definitely immoral,” he said, while adding, with a smile, “unless it’s a really good fight.” Not exactly the most helpful counsel I’ve ever received. But if you have a Netflix subscription, you will have noticed over the past several months a heavily promoted mixed martial arts match between Gina Carano and Rhonda Rousey. Both women are accomplished athletes, but at 44 and 39 years of age, respectively, the match promised to be more a spectacle and money grab than anything resembling a “really good fight.” While promoting the match, Carano and Rousey were interviewed by sports journalist Ariel Helwani. During the interview, Helwani innocently asked Carano about the significance of the image of a raven that appeared on the mouthpiece she was seen wearing during one of her matches. Visibly surprised by the question, and fighting back tears, she explained: “I had a miscarriage when I was 27. I would have named her Raven.” When Carano apologized for getting emotional, Rousey said: “It’s ok. I’ve had two. It’s rough. And it’s common. And it’s not you, you didn’t do anything wrong.” Rousey’s words were filled with compassion for the grieving mother, whose pain she understood and shared.
The exchange reminded me of an article that appeared in the Stamford Advocate last July about a local woman, Kristen LeCompte, who experienced the miscarriage of twins at 15 weeks. “That grief that gripped us really shook our world… It turned it upside down. It’s not something you can explain until you experience it.” Even though she did not have the chance to meet her children, she wanted to remember them and grieve them. She and her husband requested the remains of their children and had them buried in a cemetery in Ridgefield, where they lived at the time. After her experience, LeCompte began advocating for the establishment of a memorial shrine dedicated to children who have died, including those who died as a result of miscarriage. Such a shrine was created by the Diocese of Bridgeport in Resurrection Cemetery in Newtown in 2024. It exists as a place where children who died in utero can be remembered even if their parents were unable to retrieve their remains, which is not always possible. LeCompte observed that “a lot of women are told to not acknowledge it, and to move forward and keep going on and then the grief is there, and it exists and you don’t know how to deal with it, you don’t process it, and you feel alone.”
While the sport of mixed martial arts can be brutal and inhumane, in that moment during the interview the two athletes showed extraordinary humanity and dignity. One hopes it gives other parents who have experienced such loss permission to grieve and to share their grief with others. If you or someone you know would be interested in learning more about the Little Angels Shrine in Newtown, you can find it online on the Catholic Cemeteries website. You can also reach out to me or Fr. Mariusz, and we would be very happy to help in any way we can.
posted 5/23/26
The Parish of St. Cecilia-St. Gabriel 