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

:: Friday, January 30, 2009 ::

It's January. There are all sorts of internal goings on. I never fail to marvel at it. It has been so long since I lost my first child in an abortion that I asked and paid for in January '97. Still a day is a lifetime to the mayfly, so it's all relative. Twelve years has and hasn't been a long time. We can agree on that.

I'm not NOT writing because of some myth that I don't care anymore. I'm not neglecting the Cell because I no longer exist here having myriad thoughts, emotions, perspectives each day. It's purely practical; I'm busy as all get out (southern for quite engaged).

When my children are raised and gone, you will find me blogging every day and old, wrinkled and limping along at the annual March. I missed it again this year, because I'm a mom (and because I don't fly). In the end it's worth it; motherhood is now. I'm grateful for it.

But I am and will always be torn, because my life has been polluted by abortion. Now I have "a past," and I want to do something about it. I won't remain silent. But for now I'm on a necessary intermission. I like to think that the next several years on the back burner is just me warming up. (D'har.)

I'm only stealing this moment this morning, in between mahogany sips of Nespresso, to observe that this month I:

*have had "unexplained" feelings of sadness
*am experiencing flashbacks
*am not sleeping well, specifically, waking in the middle of the night with panicky feelings, something very abnormal for me which otherwise coincides only with severe physical illness

I realize that my mother died this month in '96. I realize that I had a traumatic D&C in January '98 after miscarrying the second child at around Christmas and refusing to have him/her removed without a second and third opinion and futile time to figure out a way to reanimate the dead. But I know what's really eating me, because I awoke one night with vivid images of my broken child a moment after his/her end, wondering where they put his/her finished remains, and seeing the reality of the last bit of metabolism and insulation-related heat (life-warmth and mother-warmth) ebb hopelessly away. I saw the unseen infrared waves dancing away toward the heavens, adhering to the ceiling, warming the building, helping to keep the machine running. I turned to the tiny, sleeping form beside me, and I thought, "Your brother, your sister, my child..."

So I got up and quietly paced the hall until the reality sunk in again that it is done, that I can not call a mulligan, I can not break into the abortion clinic, rifle through the freezer, locate, repair and rescue my child. I realize how that sounds; I have this dream where the children in the freezer are clockwork, and all I need do is pull out my tin key and wind them. It's a sweet dream whose spell, when broken, causes me to pace the empty hall in wee small hours.

OK, so I admit I haven't really been terribly emotionally sound since I added my posterity to Pendy's prosperity.

I won't apologize for my reaction. I've been called immature and psychologically damaged because of it. But I never want to be so "mature" that killing my child and trodding upon his/her ruined body is freedom. I never want to be so psychologically "healthy" as to find complete satisfaction in a rationalization that my physical comfort is more important than another human being's life.

I am glad for what I am now, and hate what I was when I took my helpless child to a building in Orlando where I asked a man to slaughter him/her and paid for it twice (as a bigger filet costs more to devour, bigger babies cost more to kill, dear reader).

I have abortion to thank for opening my eyes about abortion and about the rotten, slithering hunk of wasted space I was. So if that is your definition of success, then abortion is smashing.

You know, this January has taken me by surprise. It really has. Because this year I'd determined to put on my big girl panties and "take it like a man." After all, it has been twelve years. Twelve years of coming to terms with abortion and the loss of my precious child. Like lead in my soul, it's always there, even when I smile. But I really was not going to succumb to all the emotional "nonsense" this month, this year. I was going to be cerebral. I was going to be wisened, hardened to it, cured (so to speak).

But today I find that I'm as sloppy as ever. Sloppier. And right now the thought of saying a word to my dead child is more than I can bear. If I at this moment I married my heart with words for him/her I would lose myself in a place I couldn't claw my way out of quickly enough to meet today's impending responsibilities.

So today, on the twelve-year anniversary, I will attempt to encapsulate the complicated contradiction of abortion-related grief. It will be a cancer I know I have, and in a moment tiny pink fingers gloved in wool will be the circus I run away to.

:: ashli 6:48 AM # ::
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