I was subbing for a first-grade class when I received a text message from an unknown number. It was from a family friend’s college-aged daughter seeking help for her friend considering an abortion. She knew that I had volunteered at the Women’s Help Center, a pro-life organization that supports women throughout pregnancy, and asked if I would be willing to speak to her friend so that she understood all her options.
Choice.
Of course, I said yes. As implausible as it is to think any of us has the right to terminate life, it is a legal choice in our society. A choice that is clearly devoid of God who created us out of love and with the innate purpose to love. Taking God out of the miracle of motherhood feels illogical, but there are many who do. Even biologically speaking, motherhood is the most natural thing in the world. Not just our bodies’ ability to create life but the innate desire to protect, nurture, and sacrifice for our offspring. In the animal and the human species, this is the norm, and while it is standard it is also fierce. Everything else – including our own survival is secondary to the “it’s in our nature to nurture” phenomenon hard-wired in most living things. It hardly seems like a matter of choice.
Being in a room full of six-year-olds is a frenzy of joy. They are dynamic, unique, curious, and flat-out funny. They give spontaneous hugs, ask personal questions, listen attentively when a middle-aged woman talks about cats, and without hesitation trust you with their day. They are also complicated like the rest of humanity and will become increasingly so. Even as an outsider, I can see their proclivities, strengths, struggles, and basic need to be loved and accepted. They have a keen sense of the world around them. They are paying attention. They are fully alive. Each one a choice.
By the end of that school day, I learned that the woman made an appointment to have an abortion. She was still agreeable to speak with me and was supposed to call me the next day. She never did. Her friend explained to me that she didn’t want to be talked out of her decision. I called the young woman and assured her I was here if she wanted to talk, and would be after her appointment as well. Not to judge or lecture or to act like a caricature of a pro-life Christian in all the variances of absurdity they are portrayed as – but just to listen. My heart ached for the burden of choice this young girl carried. It would sound condescending to say the woman didn’t understand her choice; presumptuous to say abortion will affect her deeply, and Pollyanna to say that if she has her baby it will be full of giddy laughter and flying unicorns, when I know how gut-wrenchingly hard motherhood can be. Everything that can be said can be construed as flippant, dismissive, over-simplified, insensitive, or unrealistic. All the best words can come out wrong. Read more
During my senior year in high school, I had a small part in the school play, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine. My role was of the scandalous secretary who was presumably having an affair with her boss. I wore a tiny off the shoulder black dress and slung my waist-length hair around with a flick of my wrist while hinting to the more dutiful office employee about my clandestine relations. That was almost 30 years ago and the only flicking of the wrists I do now is after washing my hands in the kitchen sink when I’m too hurried to use a dishtowel.
My son was on one of those whirling amusement park rides that circled the clouds like a frenzied dog chasing its tail. Somewhere vertical in the sky he spun so fast that the metal contraption that contained him angled sideways – much like my stomach felt down below. I could barely stand to watch him, and I fervently prayed he wouldn’t end up with whiplash or vertigo or otherwise be thrust into outer space. I’ve always been the girl at the park who held the drinks, the jackets, and whatever else the “fun” people couldn’t take on the thrill rides. I am okay being this girl. I don’t feel even the slightest pang of regret for my union with solid ground. I hang out with squirmy toddlers in their strollers and watch pigeons as their heads bobble in search of food.
All of the hoopla of a new year — a new decade can feel overwhelming like the throngs of crowds who enthusiastically greet it in celebration when the clock strikes midnight. This year I slept right through it. Partly because it makes more sense to start anew with a proper night’s sleep and mostly because I am just not that into the hype of a new year. I’m not interested in goal-setting or resolutions or crushing it (whatever “it” may be.) It’s not because I’m complacent or lack ambition or betterment. It’s just that for me, resolutions never seem to be the way to affect genuine life change.
It was Christmas Eve and I couldn’t wait for Santa to come. I am not even sure I believed in Santa at this point in my childhood, but I believed in presents and that was good enough. I had trouble sleeping, and hearing the rustle of last-minute gift-wrapping upstairs only heightened my anticipation. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, I prowled the attic, my mom’s closet, and any other place I could think to snoop. The idea of being surprised was overrated. Practically speaking, I could just as easily be surprised by looking inside a plastic bag while standing barefoot on the attic’s plywood floor. I felt certain that I had watched enough television to feign astonishment on Christmas morning. I even fantasized about my Emmy-award winning performance. It would be as bright and colorful as the lights on the tree that would spotlight me.
I was in mass listening to the cantor sing the responsorial hymn, “These are the people the Lord has chosen, chosen to be his own.” I thought, “Seriously? Really, God, these are the people you chose to be your own? Was no one else around? It must have been some seriously slim pickings.”
When I reminisce about Thanksgiving, I don’t think about food. If I am being honest, I don’t even think about being grateful. What I recall is the excitement of being out of school, the quiet wonder of gazing out the car window at the rows of pines that lined the highway as we traveled to my Granny’s house, and the creak of her screen door as it flew open and I rushed inside her modest two-bedroom home straight into her warm and wrinkly arms.
Lately, when I catch a glimpse of my face it appears to be melting like candle wax or colorful taffy in the hot Florida sun. It evokes the hollow horror of Edvard Munch’s painting, “The Scream.” Since I haven’t taken any LSD, I figure this droop must be part of aging. I spoke with my doctor about the way my origami shaped eyelids are folding in on themselves, and she said that she thinks I could qualify for the medically-necessary surgery to put them back in their proper place so my vision isn’t impaired. I didn’t know whether to feel validated by her comment or virtually hopeless.
It’s the Fall of my son’s senior year in high school. The seeds we planted in the blind enthusiasm of grade school, protected from the ambivalence of middle school, and fertilized with a hearty mix of encouragement and extracurriculars through the high school years have culminated into a small crop of college applications, deadlines, and gut-wrenching decisions. Our mailbox is jammed with colorful college brochures, inviting postcards, and glossy magazines that clearly explain the absurd-cost of college. For months, we’ve binged on the propaganda. We’ve made our list. We’ve pared down our list. We’ve reevaluated and we’ve changed it – sometimes all in one day. At times, motivations and decisions seemed logical, and, just as often, the experience has felt more like a diagnosis of insanity than a direction to begin anew.
When my son was seven years old, he was trying to balance. One minute he was excitedly saying, “Look, mom, I found the spot!” Moments later, mid-wobble, he said, “Oh, wait. I lost the spot.” Of course, it was losing it I related too.