Sandra shared the vision of a lifetime

National Catholic Reporter, March 27, 1998 by Regina Siegfried

In the Aug. 29 issue of NCR, staff writer Teresa Malcolm profiled St. Louis resident Sandra Ware and Let's Start, a program founded by Ware to offer assistance to women after their release from prison. On Jan. 25, Ware died of cancer.

Sandra Ware, former drug dealer and recovering addict, never had her 15 minutes of fame, not even in St. Louis, her hometown. After a less than ideal childhood in Pruitt-Igo, the notorious public housing high-rise now razed by the government that built it, Sandra spent 17 years in and out of the Missouri prison system. Poorly, educated but intelligent, street-smart and insightful, Sandra deserved -- yet was above -- 15 minutes of fame.

She turned her life around with the help of Notre Dame Sr. Jackie Tobin, the other women of Let's Start, her husband Keith and their two small children, Najwa and Amir.

Against long odds, Sandra made a difference. Her life and hard-won wisdom profoundly affected the others involved in Let's Start, including myself and Sr. Jackie. She had a huge impact on a small group of women who counted on her strength. Role model, friend, inspiration, confidant, searcher after truth, challenger, sister -- Sandra was all of these to the women who meet every Tuesday night at St. Vincent's Parish Center in St. Louis to support one another in their journey toward stability.

I'll remember several things about Sandra. One is her often-repeated message about a second chance. Sandra knew she had been given a second chance at life after all her hard years of and prisons. She that gift to change her life and the lives of others by working for alternative sentences for nonviolent offenders. But cancer gave Sandra no third chance. Her 43 years were much too short for her husband, her children, her family, friends and for the women of Let's Start.

I'll also remember and cherish the conversations I had with her about how much she was loved. Had her health failed her 10 years ago, her drug buddies would have fled the scene. Instead, her final months were full of people who loved her, who visited her and who prayed with her. She died among true friends.

Finally, I'll remember all the lessons Sandra taught me about courage, integrity, love, honesty, laughter, dignity and deep, deep faith. I attend the Let's Start meetings disguised as a volunteer, but my real goal has been to learn from. Sandra and from the women Sandra has touched. Her spirit will live, does live, in the women who turned their lives around -- in Michelle, Kim, Karen, Mary, Holly, Daphne, Cynthia and Barbara, most of whom were in prison with Sandra and who are now each other's courage, honesty and support. I sit humbly and quietly in their classroom of life every Tuesday listening to truths beyond textbooks. Sandra will live in them when one of them echoes her usual greeting to a newcomer, "Girl, God gave you a second chance."

Ultimately, as much as we seek them, rational explanations fail to satisfy. Often there are no real answers to that hard question: Why? Why were five members of my community killed in Liberia? Why does my 26-year-old niece have cancer? Why did Sandra die when she was such a force for good?

No answers satisfy, because why is not the best question, no matter how often we ask it. Some things, some people, can only be to the Great Mystery, embraced and enfolded in infinite love.

Sandra now rests there, missed, mourned, remembered with our small portion of that great love.

Sr. Regina Siegfried, a member of the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, is a member of St. Vincent de Paul Parish in St. Louis and a volunteer for Let's Start.