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

:: Saturday, July 26, 2008 ::

Tennessee, I'm thinking of you on your due date. You would be 11 this year. A little girl at church is 11 today. I watch her grow on Sundays and think of you. Today, in spite of the sadness, in spite of the shame (which there always is, due to the nature of your death) I thought of the preciousness of your life and the reality of your being. I thought of the beauty of you, and I am thankful for the life you were given. I am thankful for the loveliness of your being. It has stayed with me like the sweet lingering scent of an infant's downy-soft nape.

Your name and your life are known in the book you inspired. The truth of your death, revealed in all its gory. Death where your life was, yet for others life where death would have been. That is the bittersweet song of you.

This year, through the cascade of tears, I celebrate you. For everything you were, everything you could have been, everything you are to me.

Stay with me. Always stay. Be mine anyway. Let me love you forever.
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Today, in honor of Tennessee's due date, I recognize fathers who have lost their children through abortion. One in particular who gave me permission to post an excerpt from his email:

"I stumbled upon your blog while searching for something entirely different and it landed me at your 'broken woman' stained glass image. The massively, bizarrely interconnected/intertwined link interplay never ceases to amaze me...
But I digress,
Reading that page from 2003 which had the stained glass image on it, brought back (as seems to happen annually, when the temperature and sunlight are just about the same of that fateful day) the day I walked with my then girlfriend, now wife of 15 years, to planned parenthood, in 1990. There were no opposition groups, no alternative thoughts on it, abortion was clearly the way out of an unexpected/unwanted pregnancy.
Well, needlessly to say, that day haunts me every time I sit back and think about our other two children and their murdered older brother or sister. It still brings me to a sudden outburst of weeping grief and heartbreak (which I just typed through) every time I think of our children.
I imagine that abortion is a difficult thing for women...it is incredibly difficult for a couple that went through it together and continued on with the relationship afterwards. It's difficult to work through the selfishness of that younger time, but I also understand that we were vulnerable, and I honestly think we were prayed upon by the 'system' that was in place. I don't even remember any on-site counseling. Perhaps my wife went through it alone while I was in the waiting room."

For you, my friend. For your wife and the child you both lost. For your other children, for the world without your child and mine and many others. May God put an end to this kind of death... and this kind of life in the Cell.

:: ashli 9:04 PM # ::
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Al Gore? Yes, this is the sad, pathetic world we live in.

:: ashli 10:30 PM # ::
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I think the video is great, because a picture's worth a thousand words. Abortion supporters will say it's manipulative, but video footage is TRUTH, and if truth is manipulative, then holy freakin' moly!

I still think we as abortion opponents need to STOP using terms like "pro-aborts." It's lame and ridiculous and will NOT get us where we want to be. An abortion supporter is a "pro-abort" like I'm an "anti-choicer." HELLO. Why don't we just call each other murderers and fascists? That will really be progressive--NOT. Oh wait, we already do that.

C'mon, people. We can do better. It's all about dignity; let's have some.

:: ashli 1:04 PM # ::
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I have been meaning to write for days now. I have so many observations and thoughts that belong here, but somehow I can't find the time. Or I don't make the time. Sometimes I don't want to make the time. The whole emotional process is odd and follows no predictable course. In the last few years I'm getting more quiet, but the surprising thing is that it seems particularly potent now...so I avoid it. I emoted and emoted for years and then I got quiet. In some ways I said what I needed to say, did what I needed to do...and now I've retreated to lick my wounds, wounds that will last a lifetime, wounds that never heal but only change...a stoma that is clean but unclosed. I don't know. It is what it is, and it sucks.

Anyway, I wrote tonight only to say that at long last I saw Bella. I know I'm coming to this party very late, but better late than never. I still haven't been able to bring myself to see the Passion, so Bella is progress. In the old days I would have written a huge, hopefully interesting post about it. Tonight let me just say that it shook me to the core. It was a beautiful, beautiful message and yet the imagery was traumatic and disturbing. It triggered some sort of post traumatic stress reaction in me, and it'll take me a few days to forget about it and get back to normal. I don't resent it. I care less how I feel and so much more about the truth being told.

Thank you, Bella, for your honesty and for the beautiful truth of your message.

We CAN do better than abortion.

:: ashli 11:02 PM # ::
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