abortion

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To my friends and family,

There was blood everywhere. On her hands, in her shoes, down her legs. That’s what gave it away. The blood on her legs. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that kind of bleeding. And the smell; a warm, metallic smell that you could almost taste. Did she taste it too? Maybe she tasted something else. Maybe she tasted the sweet deception of a long anticipated relief. Or maybe she tasted the bitterness of regret and a forward that she could never reverse. Maybe, after being unwanted and uncared for and unheard for nearly 4 months she finally tasted want and care and someone who’d actually listen. Who knows. All I know is that blood was everywhere and that I was starting to feel nauseous.

This is her story. I don’t know her name, and while I figure I could free it from the layers of dusty files if I wanted to, I think its better this way. She is not a file and she is not a statistic and she never will be. Though she might not say so herself, she deserves better. At sometime o’clock on someday in November, I think it was a Wednesday, she pulled through the gravel and up to the front door of the hospital, driving the beat-up Nissan with her unexpressed urgency from the back seat. That’s how I found her. While my body’s gotten quite good at hurrying out the door and offering its services at the first sound of crunching gravel and screeching brakes my mind has yet to do the same. I don’t think that we as a people can ever fully prepare for another person’s pain. It’s just not natural. Anyways, like I was saying, it was in the back seat that I found her. When I opened the car door she was doubled over in an L shape, strewn lifeless across the upholstery. I stood still. Blood on the carpet, blood on the seat, blood on her dress and now blood on the street. Like I said before, that’s what gave it away. This momma…was she still a momma?...needed help. Who was I to give it to her? Thankfully, I wasn’t. I was only the transporter. Rather, that was the plan. I wish that we’d kept with that plan. By the help of another man (a brother, a husband, a lover?) I was supposed to get her into the wheelchair, into the hospital, and onto a bed where more qualified personnel would assist her. But this never happened. After I opened the door the growing crowd of hospital staff and family members took over and, like an oversized crutch to her feeble frame, took her out of the car and into the hospital with little to no effort on her part. And that’s when I saw it. Like the final push up a hill cut short by fatigue and like the tail of a crimson ribbon pirouetting lifelessly to a cold and unforgiving earth, the trail of dripping blood that accompanied this momma-to-be wore on her like a tell-all to her offense. If only I’d had gotten a wheelchair under her and under her dripping blood, maybe then she could’ve maintained some decency. If only I were a bit more assertive, maybe then the concrete floor wouldn’t know her secret and the patients wouldn’t have looked at her with disgust. If only I, maybe then.

But was there any I, apart from her own, in what she’d just done? Could I have done anything to stop her from walking this road? I think not. But that’s what keeps me thinking. Could anything have been done to change what already was? Is there anything in all the sky and over all the earth, in the deepest wells of the creative mind and on the highest mountains of human love, in the eternal nature of That which created all things, that could’ve stopped this momma from actually going through with it? Could anything have been done to stop this momma from getting a back-alley abortion?

This is my question. I pray that it becomes yours. Don’t for a second think that it’s a matter of opinion on the morality of the abortion question. I know where I stand on that and friend, apathetic or not, you must too. Rather, it’s a question of freedom. Did this momma have the freedom to choose between life and death for her baby, did she have the resources and the funds and the support to actually make that choice, or was that choice already made for her? I believe that life can’t be reduced to a choice, but here’s the question: what about our environment? Can circumstance make that choice for us? Where does one’s environment come into play in determining the outcome of one’s life? Did this momma have the freedom to choose in the town of Kitengela, in the country of Kenya, on the continent of Africa, and on a broken and pretty messed up earth life for her baby or was death the only option? Or rather, should we recognize that, like I think it’s the Book of Isaiah that says, “Whether you turn to the right or to the left you will hear a voice whispering in your ear, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’,” and therefore find peace in the knowledge that the truth inside you and I is truth whether we take the high road or the low road, that the love inside us is love when we’re up and when we’re down, that faith is faith even if you get an abortion and that the author of that eternal unconditional is God. Friends, are you still you when the oceans start to rise and the thunders begin to roar or is what makes you you conditional? And getting back to the momma, did she have a choice because everyone always has a choice or did the thunderclouds and floodwaters make that choice for her? What’d ya think? I’m interested to know your thoughts. And just when you think you might know where you stand imagine yourself face-to-face with this momma and imagine her response to your judgment. If I get any responses I’ll post them back to you and together we just might get a beautiful mosaic of how people of all types from all places from many backgrounds feel about freedom. If you want everybody else to read your thoughts go ahead and post them in the comments section. Lets you and I learn and grow a bit together, eh?

Miss you all! Only 3 more weeks!

Peace to you

kyle

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