At the tender age of 17, I walked across this bridge, alone, into Downtown Pittsburgh, with $300 in my pocket that my mother had given me to get an abortion. I went into the Fulton Building (in the picture) and did what I was told to do. I didn't have a choice - if I did, I wouldn't have chosen abortion.
Tomorrow is the March for Life in Washington, D.C. and I'll be there among the crowds, just one person, one woman. Even in the thousands and thousands of people, I will feel alone at times, a desperate loneliness at times. But then, I remind myself that I'm not alone, that I'm never alone because He is with me and Grace Anne is with me. She's part of me forever.
The nerves are increasing because tomorrow is a day when both of my "lives" intersect for a while and I delicately tip toe through despair, joy, hope, sadness, guilt, anger, intense self scrutiny, meek attempts at prayer, and polite conversation. Come, Holy Spirit, please... and don't ever, ever leave.
So, tomorrow I walk for Grace Anne and for me. I also walk thanks to my husband because from the moment he came into my life, he changed it forever, for good. I walk for my girls so that they never, ever have to go through what I went through.
Just when you think you are going along just fine, doing well, trudging on, WINNING... you're knocked so far down you start to believe you may never get up. Through blurry, tear stained eyes, a bleary mind, and a heart that is testing the strength of the stitching holding it together, you wake up the next day still alive. Now what? I hope that one of my "7 Quick Takes Friday" posts will be a joyful one - today is not that day. Today is the day I just spit out what's on my mind in the hopes that it helps someone, somewhere, or just me.
--- 2 ---
Last evening, I had the privilege of helping with a task that I had initially suggested and was grateful that the suggestion was received. I stuffed bulletins at my parish with a quote from JPII speaking with women who have had abortions and information on where to go for help for postabortion healing. Aren't I just a success story? I sat there and placed each insert in however many bulletins until I ran out. I tried to pray as I did so. Then the doubt crept in. Who the hell am I to sit in my parish rectory, all holier than thou, stuffing bulletins from my new-found high horse?
--- 3 ---
I decided to go over to adoration when I was finished, grateful for the opportunity, and the idea that I was so near by to Him all that time just had me quite giddy. I wasn't prepared for adoration, no journal, no book, no rosary... just me. I sat there and asked for forgiveness and offered thanksgiving and then asked for help. I'm not sure what I got. I began to think about a lot of things and my parents in particular, and things I haven't thought about in a long time. Long story short, with tears streaming, face down, I left adoration and went to my car where I was able to lose it completely. I was alone and I cried and cried and cried, drove home, poured it out to my hubby, cried some more. Cried myself to sleep.
--- 4 ---
I hope that next week on the March for Life, prayers are said for the walking wounded who abortion has scarred for life. Millions of women and men, millions of stories, millions of reasons, excuses, and lies, millions of children in heaven waiting, albeit in paradise, for their parents to come. I hope that the people who line the streets with those pictures of ripped up and torn up babies realize they are preaching to the choir at the March - and are hurting more than helping at that point. You, with the ugly signs, you will cause me to doubt the mercy of my Lord and Savior - that's what your signs do.
--- 5 ---
Why do we need prayers? Abortion is an evil, despicable thing. I will never forget it, though I beg to. I want the memory to leave me. If I could cut out the part of my brain where them memory festers, I would. I want the pain to stop, the never ending, always there, throbbing at different intensities but always there, pain of what I did, of what I had, of what I don't have, of what could have, would have, should have been. I want the sound of that machine to be gone forever. I want the sound of scraping metal on metal surgical tools on a tray to leave me. I want the memory of that abortionist's face, only from profile because he never once looked at me, to disappear. I want the cold feeling of the speculum violating me in a way I never even knew existed until that moment to go away. I want the memory of the cramping, and pulling, and tugging, and "just a little pressure, now," to stop. I want the tears I remember silently rolling down the sides of my face to dry up. I want the feeling of the "counselor's" hand in mind to leave me. I want her words of, "it's going to be okay, it's almost over," to never enter my mind again. My body was not made for this violence. Those precious parts of me that He created to bring forth life were now and forever damaged and made into something else entirely and over and over and over again for a long while the damage resurfaced. And now, despite the blessings heaped upon me in my mostly charmed life, the pain remains, the emptiness, the despair, the loneliness, and hopelessness at times when I'm so not expecting it.
--- 6 ---
In 1987 there was no ultrasound. I was fed the "bunch of cells" lie and I tried to believe it. Now, I know how big that lie is. Now I'm not only tortured by the pain of my memories of the abortion, now I have the added pain of exactly what was taken from me in my face every day. Now I can see online pictures of the abortion procedure room, and that machine, and the jar that my Grace was deposited into. I can't enter a doctor's office to this day without flashing back to that "treatment" room. Same tile floors, same ceiling, same smells. I don't know how to put this all away in some nice little box on the shelf and be rid of it. My anger turns to Him as I ask why? Why did you make me go through this? Why did you make me bring it up - now? Why did you make me feel like I have some part in stopping the violence to happening to someone else? Just leave me alone with it, where I can stuff it down inside me and never act on it. Why do I write about it and talk about it? Why am I going to the March for Life next week? What's the point?
--- 7 ---
That's it. That's all I've got for today. Hopefully the fog will lift throughout the day today as I go about my vocational duties and chores. Hopefully I keep the demons at bay. Hopefully I'm reminded of why I'm here and what the point is.
This is my first shot at 7 Quick Takes Friday so I have no idea what to talk about. Is announcing that I don't know what to talk about considered a "quick take?"
--- 2 ---
It's been almost two weeks since I spoke to my Mom on the telephone. This sounds like something easy to rectify - but it's not. It's complicated. I know I should just suck it up and call, but every phone call is becoming more and more difficult. I know my parents are both aging, but it's getting worse, exponentially it seems. My Mom and I have the same conversation generally, with just a few differences. We don't talk about anything very meaningful and it usually ends up with me feeling exponentially crappy about myself. When I do decide to call - I am told exactly how many days it's been since I called last in case I forgot. In the meantime, I send daily emails and pictures and updates, but this does not carry the same weight as a phone call. If I call with the kids around and they are noisy, I hear sighing because it's noisy. If I call when the kids aren't around, I am criticized for only calling when the kids aren't around to talk to her. I can't win.
--- 3 ---
Speaking of mother/daughter relationships - my eldest here on earth is giving me a run for my money. I think it has to do with the curse my mother put on me as soon as she found out I was having a girl. To announce the "girl" baby coming I sent a bunch of pink flowers to her office at work. In return I got a phone call telling me about how she couldn't wait to see what my daughter would do to me as payback. Congrats Mom - you are winning at this point! Though I'll never tell her that or let on. Parenting a tween with hormones emerging daily is exasperating. I keep trying to remember what I needed the most at that age and give it to her. Sometimes I just hide because she hates me and loves Daddy right now.
--- 4 ---
Speaking of other mother/daughter relationships - I'm finding my little one is much more sensitive than she lets on. A very familiar quality I can relate to. She's maturing every day and I find myself missing all the things that went on when she wasn't quite so mature yet. The toys at Christmas weren't baby toys. Her clothes aren't baby clothes. She's very independent in a good way. Even so she still is shy sometimes and clings to me and insists on 100 kisses before bedtime or before leaving me. I try to remind myself to enjoy it now because she will be a tween before I know it and hate me too.
Boy these 7 quick takes are fast becoming 7 depressing diatribes - that is until the little one just interrupted take #5 demanding a hug. Best part of the day. Not a regular hug mind you, she has to crawl on my lap and I'm not allowed to look at the lap top, and I have to wrap her up in my arms and stay there until she's ready to leave. Sometimes being a mom rocks.
--- 7 ---
One last resolution - or at least something I need to work on and want to work on... my "prayer life." I need to learn how to pray somehow or at least figure out if what I consider praying is really prayer or does it matter or does He even care? As usual, I will complicate the hell out of it.
To quote many an angst-ridden tween, teen, young adult, mid-life crisis'er, whomever... the question of who am I is a popular one. I'm wondering if it is every really answered? Does anyone ever come to a definitive conclusion? I can easily label who I am with what I am and/or what I do: Catholic, woman, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, cousin, aunt, blogger. Having been on this journey - my labels have changed somewhat or at least evolved in their definition. About a decade or more ago, I would have labeled myself pro-choice, or at least pro-anything that keeps me from having to face my own abortion. Now that I list "unequivocally prolife" among my labels, I find it's one that I constantly have to defend to family and friends. This remains difficult because they don't know the real story behind my conversion, the behind the scenes work that has gone on to get me where I am now. Okay, so maybe I haven't come out that strong - some know I went on the March for Life last year, others have heard me say a word or two, but that's about it. I hope to get to a point one day where standing up for my beliefs is as easy as breathing or at least to the point where I can do it without the security of a keyboard in front of me. But then, who am I to drag out my soap box all the time?
Anyway, with the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade on the horizon, the uptick in coverage on the abortion debate is fast reaching a fever pitch. Maybe not in the main stream media - but on Catholic blogs and the usual places I go for information - it's a big topic and this is good and bad. It's good that abortion is being talked about. It's fantastic that even Time Magazine is claiming the tide is turning.
However, because I've recognized and have admitted that I'm not as strong as I think I am, I have to be careful of how much information I seek out. Since I'm 95% anonymous with my story, I have two Facebook identities, two twitter handles, two blogs and never the twain shall meet - at least not until I'm ready or someone finds me out. But, I can easily just not log on to my fervent, traditional leaning, Bible reading, wannabe Catechism scholar, uber-Catholic persona for a while and take a break from all the prolife stuff. Just the other evening as I was scrolling through my "other" Twitter feed, some of the biggest prolife voices out there cause me to shudder with their words. I want to call them up on the telephone (a novel idea) and ask them if they ever think of the postabortive women and men who may be reading their words? I know there is a time a place for graphic photographs and graphic language, but sometimes there is a place where it's not necessary. Those kind of words and pictures definitely had something to do with me suffering in silence for so very long. I just don't think you can preach the mercy of Jesus in one breath (or Tweet) and in the next talk about how women are murdering their children by the thousands at Planned Parenthood Killing Facilities. You just made your Tweet about our merciful Lord completely obsolete, I want to tell them. We don't need the "m" word always - we all know what it is. The postabortive people out here who, if felt moved to become, as JPII has said, the "most eloquent defenders of everyone's right to life," don't need the constant reminders of what happened to their baby. Trust me, I know what happened. There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about it.
I get the argument that people won't fight against abortion until they really know what abortion is - but really - in this day and age do people really not know what abortion is? And, the extreme left prochoice, proabortion at all costs person up to the 11th hour (or 9th month), is, I'm afraid, never going to care no matter what you show them. I think the drastic approach is hurting too many postabortive women and men than it is converting prochoice people. But, I could be wrong. Who am I to know for sure?
Just for some kicks I posted my blog on a prochoice Facebook page about a week ago. Let's call it a lesson in self punishment and a test of my Catholic apologetics skills. Epic fail. I have zero skills. Those people are cra-zy. I'm not kidding. I'm not sure there is anything that would change some of their minds. The venom they spewed at me was just plain evil - evil enough that it was starting to make me doubt myself - so I had to give up on my experiment to live to fight another day. Who did I think I was even trying? Sometimes I don't know who I am at all. Sometimes I spend so much time flipping back and forth between me-then and me-now that I'm completely lost altogether.
Then, as things usually do, or as He usually does, things begin to happen right under my nose to remind me just who I am, who I really am. Who I really want to be. That real person is somewhere in between my two personas on Facebook and Twitter. That person is the woman who knows she is loved by God, and when she needs a reminder of that love she goes and gets one STAT. That person speaks out about her beliefs and tells the story to back them up with unabashed courage. That person cries at the first couple notes of a choir singing, or upon entering her beloved Church where He dwells. That person lives in her present, blessed life, but still remembers and sometimes grieves for the one who is not here. That person sees the scars from her 2 C-sections and is grateful for being able to carry two children to term at all. That person is able to give, and more importantly, is learning to receive the love that has been heaped upon her in spite of herself. That person looks upon her ridiculously handsome, caring, loving husband, and is able to forget those who came before who left pain and heartache and damage. That person goes to the abortion clinic and stands with tears behind her sunglasses and prays for those inside.
Wait...I guess I kind of, am, already that person? Sort of? I'm getting there. I just wish I could be all of those things 100%, but instead I feel stuck being what I am presently, torn. When I'm really second guessing all that is, was, should have been, and could be, I'll feel Him speaking to me through something I read, a reading at Mass, sometimes in a song. And then, I remember I am..
... the one who He shines His light on
... the one who He recognizes by name
....the one who He would love so gently
... the one He speaks to so softly
I'm whatever He wills for me to be right now, at this moment, and nothing more.
