Convoluted

non-subject: "connection"

aww ~ 03/10/10

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I saw some photographs yesterday. Photographs of aborted fetuses.  I've never believed abortion to be murder.  I still don't think that, though sometimes I wonder. Do I think that it's not murder in order to relieve my own guilt, my own deed?

There is a difference to me between killing and murder.  To me murder has malicious intent, motive to harm, foul play. Perhaps when I had my abortion I was a victim of foul play. It's still difficult for me to lay blame at the feet of The Way for certain stuff in my life. 

In some of its actions The Way was criminal: cover-ups, abuse of power, sexual abuse guised as what a woman is to provide in order to bless a "man of God."

Sometimes I think it'd almost be easier if the sexual crimes were physically violent rapes. Instead, the "men of God" manipulated people who were indoctrinated to obey. I think some of the men knew what they were doing, intentionally manipulating, and some didn't. I'm beginning to believe that Dr. Wierwille was very aware. Makes me feel dirty, and I wasn't even a victim of the sexual "blessings" manipulation.

I feel dirty that I supported such, unknowingly; but still I supported it, for 28 years. Twenty-eight years is a long time.

I saw the photos of aborted fetuses yesterday.  Fetuses between 7 weeks and 12 weeks developed. The photos were of tiny severed hands and feet, of decapitated tiny beings, chopped spines.  I could see the finger nails on the tiny fingers. In one photo an eye was open on the head that was severed from the body. 

I wish I could remember how far along I was with my pregnancy when I had the abortion. I'm thinking it was around 8 weeks.  It's like a memory that is lodged in a closet in my head.

It's not lodged in my heart.

It hides inside a brain closet.  I see the wooden door with a black iron handle.  It's waiting for me to open it.  It's like even if I open it I won't believe what it has to show me.

My heart almost trembles.  My eyes wet with tears.

I sat in Janet's office in 2006, within a couple months after I'd seen the image of that olive-skin naked babe that I couldn't nurse because it was dead. Within a couple months after the dead-nursing-baby image and being doubled over in grief for seven to eight hours, a name for the babe kept popping into my head. I kept pushing the name away.

To my self I said, Carol, that's silly.  It's silly to even grieve something from 27 years ago. It's even sillier to name it.  You really don't absolutely know the gender.  Besides it never fully formed.  How can you grieve something or someone that you never knew?

But still I grieved, for months and months.  The grief wasn't just for the babe, but I think too it was for that whole time period and the loss of the relationship with Luke.

I contacted Luke to ask the names of his sons.  I didn't want to name the babe with one of the names Luke had already used.  The name that kept popping in my head was safe; none of Luke's sons were named "Alex."

I wrote Luke in an email and let him know. "Alex."  Luke never responded to that email.

He had mentioned in one of our conversations, that once a door is closed it is best left shut. I didn't take that to heart. I have too many closed doors.  I want them open.  I want to see. I want to remember.

I think that's part of the reason I felt rage toward Luke.  I never let him know the rage I felt.  I let my counselor, Janet, know.  I let a couple of my close friends know.  I wrote poems about the rage.

It's not an easy subject.  Relationships. Abortion. Indoctrination. Rage. Grief. Guilt.

And then feeling like I should just move on, like none of it ever happened.

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Click here to read an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction

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