aww: march 3, 2010
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On Twitter lately I've been following a lady as she tweets about her abortion. It has caused quite a stir, attracting the national news.
People are so loud.
I'm not saying that's bad or good; it just is. Everyone hollers their opinion. I wonder if people holler their experience.
I'm not sure of my opinion on certain things. Sometimes my opinion changes. My experiences don't change, but how I remember them might change. How I convey them. How I perceive them. What I thought that I thought, when later I find out what I think, which then changes again down the road.
I don't think I like loud. I think I like quiet more. To hear the quiet - even in the noise.
I recently read a line by a guy named "Chuck." Chuck wrote that his father used to say, "It was so quiet you could hear a rat pissin' on a cotton ball." Maybe that's what I'll have written on my tombstone. But I don't want a tombstone; do I?
Abortion.
At 47 years old I sat on the toilet in the bathroom on a Saturday morning in July, 2006. I was thinking. That's probably where a lot of people do some thinking, huh?
Luke and I had a reunion the previous Saturday. Luke, my true love from over 25 years ago. Luke, who told me on one of our getting-to-know-each-other-again phone calls that I had been his promised land; yet God had fed him with manna. Luke, whom after we laid our hearts bare and I stated how much the reunion had affected me, responded, "I'll meet you at the bottom." Luke, whom after my husband met on the phone and I asked my husband, "Well how do you feel after meeting Luke?" My husband replied, "I feel like I just met my ghost of 25 years."
Luke, whom at first politely stated his marriage was doing well, and later stating that emotional intimacy was lacking. I understand that and have experienced the same. He said he wanted to jump in the car and drive from Maryland, pick me up, and drive off into the sunset. But we both knew that wouldn't work. He loves his wife; they've raised a family together. I love my John, my husband. I never want to hurt him.
It's o.k. that I think of Luke. It's been hard, our reunion. It continued to be difficult into 2009. My last intensely-feeling-need-to-connect heart tug was in September, 2009. We spoke on the phone then. Perhaps we'll touch base again at some point.
I've watched videos of Luke on youtube, videos that have to do with his work. His hands, that's what I notice. Always has been. I notice a man's hands. To me the hands are the sexiest part of a man's body. I like to watch hands.
I sat on the toilet that day thinking about the abortion from when I was 19. Luke is the father of that unborn life. We were madly in love at the time, as 19 year olds can be.
The abortion came and went. I treated it like a splinter. That's how The Way treated it, pretty much. Whisk me away from my position on the field to hide and get the deed done. Five days later, back on the field to "move the Word," to "do the work of the Ministry," to help take the "Word over the world." Like it never happened, the abortion. But it did.
At 47 years old I looked at it, at that time in my life. Not much emotion until I asked my body, the universe, God, or whatever.
I asked, "What was the gender?"
My thoughts answered, "Boy."
I asked, "What did he look like?" knowing full well the embryo or fetus wasn't a child yet. Knowing, logically, that it was a stupid-ass question about a life that had not yet taken full form.
My thoughts answered with an image, clear as any image can be.
For a few minutes I held that little naked boy. Olive skin. Dark eyes. Head full of black hair. He suckled my breast.
My thoughts said, "He's dead."
The next seven hours stricken with grief.
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Click here to read an introduction to memoir: Journey through Memoir: Introduction
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