:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 ::

For those whose pain is complicated and isolating...

"'Everybody says the worst thing that could ever happen is the death of a child,'" says Janette Fennell, the advocacy group's founder and president. 'What's different in these, in over 70 percent of the cases, it's a direct relative of the child that's behind the wheel--mom or dad, grandma or grandpa, aunt or uncle."'

Losing a child, compounded by unimaginable guilt over who was responsible for the accident, leaves families traumatized and immobilized in their grief. With no easy answers for why it happened to their child or their family, anger and blame often are misdirected. The strain on relationships can be tremendous."

I know I'm not allowed to claim that my family's emotional experience is this exactly. But it is. It's this and more, because, although the death was unwanted, it was arranged. It was asked for. It was paid for. And so I'm told I have no right to the evolved feelings of a "good" parent, an innocent parent, like a parent who is unintentionally the source of her child's death. Indeed, the concept of this very post, a parallel, will boil the blood of some who read it.

The idea is that my love is inferior so what could I possibly know of it? To what depth could I possibly feel love, much less the sting of the death and loss of it? How could it be complicated when in all simplicity I am the basest progeny-eating animal?

I can only suggest that either I break the rules or they don't apply. Could it be more complex than "inferior love?"

I'm contemplative because I've had an unusually interesting influx of correspondence and chatter of late, seeming to be destined for experiences outside the usual human realm. Would that I was a dull figure carved of some unfeeling material but I'm not. Would that eyes wore marble cataracts but they don't. I see and feel.

And when I don't make excuses for myself I am called a self-flagellator.
When I don't make excuses for myself people make them for me.
When I don't make excuses for myself my excuses are not good enough.
When I don't make excuses for myself I'm responsible.

When I reject abortion people use my case to argue for it.
When I reject abortion people say it was the best I could do.
When I reject abortion I am hated for past participation.
When I reject abortion it is rational.

If I ask for mercy it will come with a price.
If I ask for mercy it will not be understood.
If I ask for mercy it will not be given.
If I ask for mercy I find it true.

Is any of that plain? Does the turning screw really need more leverage? Is there another point of view I haven't considered or been subjected to?

What then?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that parents who mourn lost children, parents who regret their contribution, are being met with mainstream concern. But those of us who are stunned by the bewildering pain and regret of the abortion-related deaths of our children find no such general consideration, nor do we find a (mainstream) willing analysis of the psychic/emotional experience. We can't. For society would have to determine us mentally incompetent for mourning make-believe children or society would have to recognize real children who are being killed by their own parents because we as a nation have said it's acceptable and ingrained it as truth and freedom, good things, among our people. The former is impossible, and we will not soon find relief in waiting for the latter. Where then does our help come from?

Look and we will find a God Who hears us. Search and discover those few people who really are genuinely His. While they might not be able to bring public awareness to what we are going through, they will walk through it with us. And that is no small thing.

:: ashli 4:26 PM # ::
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