ROCKFORD—The 16th annual January Life Breakfast in Rockford on Jan. 15 honored Holy Family parishioners Robert and Joyce Balzer and featured St. James parishioners Larry and Stacy Morrissey as keynote speakers.

The event first applauded attending pastors, health professionals and politicians as persons who can assist the life cause in special ways.

The White Rose Award (for young pro-lifers) then was presented to Christiana Belonger.

The Balzers were honored with the Family Heritage Award for their pro-life activity that included bringing their eight children to pray at the now-closed abortuary and to Life Chain events. Their children are all active in their Catholic faith and have blessed their parents with 48 grandchildren, some of whom attended the breakfast.

Rockford Mayor Morrissey and his wife both wiped away tears as they shared their experiences with their deceased son, Michael Joseph, who was born in 2007 with Ebstein’s anomaly — a rare heart defect — and with a chromosome abnormality.

They said their faith helped them reject abortion suggestions and bolstered their efforts to negotiate with a medical bureaucracy and with medical professionals who seemed to view their child as “a defective baby” once the chromosome abnormality was discovered.

They shared their ups and downs as Michael’s condition changed from times of hopefulness to becoming too ill to transport to a doctor who would have operated on him.

Michael lived 40 days, the last one spent away from the hospital at home with his family where “we left behind sickness and fear … (and) laughed and smiled” as they held their son and looking into his no-longer-always-closed eyes.

“We knew our Lord had smiled upon us … He who gave us life … In Him we trust, in Him we pray,” they concluded. “We couldn’t save Michael, but Jesus did. God took our precious little baby directly to heaven from our arms.”

Following their talk, Bishop David Malloy provided the closing prayer, giving thanks to God for life in all its “beauty, depth, love, challenges, suffering and visits to the park” and for the “image of (God) in our life, (with) love written into each heart.”

The annual January Life Breakfast is hosted by The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society.