It was a quiet ride to the hospital. Dad was working and having only one car left little choice; we would take a taxi. I stood quietly, dressed and ready to go, overnight bag in hand. I was told it would be one-night stay. 

Watching mom dial the number to summon the taxi, silence between us pulls the air from the room. She sets the receiver down and silently puts her coat on, first a scarf, always a scarf, around her neck, then her long wool winter coat. I help her with her boots. Osteoarthritis has taken its toll on her, she either walks with a cane or she will use her crutches. We exit the house; the autumn air fills my lungs. It’s three steps off the porch, down the short sidewalk to the curb. I attempt to help mom down the steps, she pulls her arm away, “I’m fine, don’t need any help.” Her words, spoken only weeks ago ring in my ears, “you should be ashamed of yourself.” 

It was the late 1960s, the Vietnam war protests filled the nightly news along with reports of thousands of young men being sent to war, fresh out of high school. The country was boiling in controversy. Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins land on the moon, and we watch on our TV in amazement. Sesame Street premieres, but we still prefer Captain Kangaroo. In upstate New York, on someone’s farmland, Woodstock was happening. Sex, drugs, and rock and roll became every parent’s nightmare.

I was raised by elderly parents, each born in 1914. Mom and Dad had lived through the depression, WW2, the Korean war and the many wars that followed. My mother laid in her hospital bed, in her home as she watched in disbelief on September 11, 2001, as the twin towers fell during the first attack on American soil. During the 1960s mom had seen her eldest son drafted into the army and his new wife to live with us in our four-bedroom rented house. It was this wife, Sherry, that recently spoke to me of the abortion, it was her comment,”they should have never done that to you,” that provoked me to write my story. Sherry was the first person to breach the silence. 

Mom’s entire married life to a man, my father, who struggled to keep a job, he was unfaithful to their marriage vows, a truth I would learn after the death of my father in August of 1995. This was the same year I gave birth to our eighth child, a girl, Abigail. I too would become an elderly parent, giving birth to our ninth child at age 44, in 1998.

It is 1969. Her pregnant daughter, me, at age fifteen was adding more chaos to Mom’s already troubled life. Her tears ran warm, always in private. It would be many years before I witnessed those tears and her deep regret, for decisions made. Of the seven siblings, only three of us still lived at home, me falling in the middle.

How did this happen, my mom wondered, good Catholic girls should not get pregnant outside of marriage.

We had moved several times during my childhood. Dad did not seem to be able to hold a job or catch his dream of self-employment. We had moved from Elk Rapids to Oscoda Michigan, to Traverse City where I would enter the sixth grade. Making friends was never a problem for me, so entering a new school felt comfortable. It was three years after I had started school when I met Boy Wonder,   I was fifteen years old. My girlfriends did not like him. They felt he was arrogant and always pulled me away from our once tight knit group. I found myself smitten by his blond hair, blue eyes, tight T-shirts, and his bell bottom jeans. His name was Edward, Ed for short, and even his name made me smile. Both my parents liked him, and we were allowed to spend time together, with curfews. We didn’t waste any time before we began exploring one another’s body. Unprotected sex followed. We were too young and uninformed to think about “protected sex.” 

I remember sex education classes in school being a huge issue for my mother. She was shocked that the school would teach children about something they didn’t need to know until just before marriage. She felt it was the parents’ responsibility. This was a bit confusing to me when I started to bleed to death at twelve years of age, and thought I was surely going to die. I ran home from school only to be handed a pamphlet and a box of Kotex, containing an elastic belt with two metal tabs to attach a gigantic cotton pad, the size of a 2×4 between my legs to absorb the blood that seeped out of my vagina for five to seven long days. How long? Until you turn gray and your skin wrinkles. Every young girl’s nightmare. I could not believe that this was my future. I cried. This bleeding was called a ‘period.’ Punctuation took on an entirely different meaning at this point. To discard these little crime scene pads, they were to be rolled into a ball, wrapped in toilet paper, and placed in the waste basket. Mom never talked to me about anything regarding my period or human reproduction. Mom held firm; I would not attend “those sex classes.” 

Ed and I continued our relationship through the summer, with a lot of backseat sex. Two tracks in the dark of night, windows cracked, mosquitoes biting our bare bottoms, contorted in a way only youth can. I have since looked back and thought back seat sex is an athletic event best left to the movie screen or the imagination.

Soon it was November. 

I had become sick, often missing school and unable to go out with Ed . I noticed he was not calling me that often and avoided coming over. His rejection saddened me.

I never thought I would get pregnant. I didn’t think much past the feeling of having someone want me. I thought I loved this young boy named Ed, and he said he loved me.

It was barely past seven in the morning as I pull back the curtain that hangs mid-stairway  in an attempt to keep the heat downstairs while holding our bedrooms upstairs at walk-in-cooler temperature. I do not know how much money it saved my parents, but it kept the heat from rising past those curtains. I yell downstairs.

“I can’t go to school. I feel sick. I just threw up!” 

I could hear mom downstairs. Disabled, she was unable to climb the stairway. She slept on a twin bed downstairs, placed in the corner of the living room. Dad slept upstairs, he worked a lot and I do not remember him being involved in our lives. Oddly, I looked up to him and longed for his approval. Dad was hard working, good looking, and a fiercely proud man. Both mom and dad in all their dysfunction were devout Catholics and raised us with all the rituals and traditions, because that is what good Catholic parents do.

Mom made a doctor appointment for me. I went alone, in a taxi, on a cold November day. I knew I could not go home and face my parents. The appointment had answered the questions,- about the vomiting, tiredness, and fatigue – I was pregnant. I had to escape, so I ran, I ran hard and fast. My running turned into hitchhiking, eventually ending up at a friend’s house located at the other side of town. In a panic I rang the doorbell. Thankfully Sandy, one of my closest friends, answered; she saw that I was crying, and  was wet and cold. I blurt,” I’m pregnant!” She hugs me and we run upstairs to her bedroom. Sandy’s mother, a teacher, was grading papers in her office and was not aware I was there. Sandy tries to calm me. Moments pass as Sandy tries to console me and problem solve my crisis. We are unaware of the knock on the door downstairs, when we hear Sandy’s mom yell, “Sandy, the police are here! What’s going on? Get down here!”

We both come downstairs, and to my horror, next to Mrs. Carson, stood two City police officers. I looked at Mrs. Carson and told her I was pregnant and could not go home so I came here. With a hug, she whispered in my ear, “Oh God honey, I’m so sorry, but you have to go home.”

The officers guided me to the waiting police car. One of them opened the back door,and I slide in; it’s warm against the November chill. My running was over, there was nowhere to go. I stared out the window into the cold dark night. Loneliness and hopelessness surrounded me, and I was swallowed up by fear. How could this have happened, I never thought I would get pregnant. Lost in the feeling of young love and being loved against the loneliness that I now felt.

I want to die.

The rain turns to snow and continued to fall, melting as it landed against the warmth of the back seat window, turning into streaks of water, blurring the shapes of the houses and street signs we pass, taking on a mystical form. It is a short ride to my parents’ home. The two officers escorted me up the short sidewalk, up three steps and onto the wooden porch. I saw my father watching through the half-windowed door as we approached. So many nights Ed had walked me up these same steps and kissed me goodnight. Dad opened the door, shook the officers’ hands, and thanked them for bringing me home. I walked past and enter the well-lit dining room. Seated at the head of the table is my mother, her cane hanging next to her on the table edge. Dad entered and sat next to her. He placed his cigarette in the glass ashtray close to where moms cane rests, its smoke rising like a snake disappearing, leaving only its smell to permeate the air, making my stomach turn. Ed had been summoned and questioned before my arrival, he was seated across from mom and dad. I remain standing.

Mom breaks the silence.

“Well, you’ve gotten yourself in a fine mess. You ought to be ashamed!”

“Sit!” Dad commanded, pointing to a chair next to Ed.

In disgust mom says, “When you didn’t come home after your appointment. I called the doctors office, and they informed me you are,” with a look of disgust she utters, “pregnant.” 

I sat, head hung low, shoulders rounded. Ed’s hands are folded neatly on his lap. Two young, teen lovers caught in the web of poor choices. My father was the first to speak and break the painful silence that surrounds us.

“You have brought shame on our family name.”

He rose from his chair, and told Ed to leave. “We will be talking soon.”

Dad goes into the living room, and the TV clicked on, his chair creaking as he sits. The sound of his lighter echoed as he flipped the top, and I can almost hear him inhale as he lit his cigarette. 

In silence I climbed the stairs, flip the curtain and head to my room. The night is over. Mother sat in her fear of what to do to resolve this horrible situation.

Her decision changed all our lives forever. The words my father spoke were the last words he ever said about my being pregnant. My mother was left with all the decision making. Years later she tells of the early morning after; she packs dad’s lunch, he walks out the back door heading for his car and she begged him for help, “Please, Charlie, what are we going to do?” He kept walking, never turned to address her pleas. She slammed the door, turned, and went to her bed, fell flat, weeping, and begged God for help.

My mother was on the phone the next morning making several frantic phone calls. I stayed in the confines of my room with shades pulled, candles burning, listening to Black Sabbath records on my little red and white record player, over and over again. I stopped, standing at the top of the stairs and heard her voice travel up. Who was she talking to? Why don’t they leave me to die? I have brought shame to the family, that is what I have been told, that was what I believed. I hated myself, my boyfriend, and being pregnant. I wanted to die, the shame that was placed on me was unbearable.

After many doctor appointments, the final evaluation was revealed- my life was in danger. A medical abortion was to be performed at our local hospital. 

I became tired of the questions and appointments to evaluate my situation. Tired of the hope buried deep inside of me that someone was going to enter my life; help me, make it better, bring life as it once was back to me. I was sorry for the pain I had brought to my mother, our relationship was so fractured, the distance so great that the hope of reconciliation seemed impossible. My siblings never intervened; they did not know how. I was truly alone. I had been bad, very bad, shame on me. That is what I heard: that is what I believed. I hid deep within my core, fearful and alone. A wild animal caught in a trap, panting, pulling trying to find a way out. An animal with its leg caught, as blood drips, flesh rips and tears, hangs loose dangling off the bone, as the trap gnaws deeper into marrow to the point of separation, with no hope of escape, left to limp away on a bloody stump, one-less limb. 

There was never any mention of my baby. No education as to fetal development, or adoption. Nothing ever shared about the actual “procedure.” No support for the emotional aftermath.

Mom does not want me to touch her. I have always helped her–made her laugh when she was sad, picked up the things she dropped, handed her the things she could not reach. I long to touch her, to be touched, hugged. 

I needed my mom, a mom.

We stand by the curb waiting.  The dingy yellow city cab slowly pulls up to the curb. The autumn leaves, late for pick up, made crisp from the November frost, covered in a slight dusting of snow crunch beneath the wheels as the taxi pulls close to the curb, allowing easy access for mom, who stands leaning on her crutches. I open the door for her as she slides in the back. I place her crutches on the floor in front of her. As I walk around the cab to enter the rear passenger side, I want to run. Run fast and hard into another dimension, one with no pain.

I run hard against an imagined packed earthen trail, arms pump wildly helping to gain speed, heart beating, each beat tearing at my chest, desperate to escape, run hard, breath fans the painful burn of inhale, feet pound against the shame, the smell of stale cigarettes, bloodshot eyes, dark nights, back seats, cracked windows that allow hungry mosquitoes to feed on innocent flesh, shirts unbutton, pants unzip, youthful lust and raging hormones mistaken for love explode, all this would flip and fly in the wind detaching like scaling a fish, all the painful words the doctor spoke, the vomiting, the sickness, my mother’s endless secret phone calls, and worries. The taxi that takes me unaware to death’s door, a fatherless hug and a boyfriend grown distant –  could he have known? Everything would be scraped off, the guilt, shame, loneliness. I would fly just like in the dreams I had as a child. I would stand alone in the corner of our yard in the dark of night, spread my arms wide, stare into the approaching wind as it blows hard against the earth down the gravel road forming dirt devils coming closer pressing my clothes tight against my small frame. I stand as though naked, unafraid, wind fierce and powerful, tree branches slapping together in the song of a thousand chopsticks of hungry giants. Wind wraps itself around me, feet leave the ground, high into the sky my body is guided above landscapes, lakes, and fields. I breathe deep the wind and allow it to make me strong again.

I open the door, slide in. The taxi smells of stale cigarettes, the seats are cold stiff brown vinyl and haven’t seen soap or water in their lifetime. The cab driver looks worn and tired as he watches us through his rear-view mirror. He swings his arm over the seat and turns to face us, he struggles as he peers over his shoulder. Face unshaven, dirty crooked black rimmed glasses perch halfway down his nose and asks, “Where to, ladies?”

Mom answers, “Munson Medical Center.”

He turns, flips the meter, and the yellow taxi pulls away from our home. 

All admissions to the hospital are public. Mom, being a proud Catholic woman, did not want our name in the paper. She did not want the questions, the shame. She entered me under a false name. I do not remember what that name was.

Many years later, my husband Steve and I were cleaning old things out of our barn. We had a big fire in our burn pit, we were each pitching old magazines, things that we had accumulated growing up and no longer felt the need to keep. I came across a faded blue cardboard box of receipts I had saved, there were even high school report cards. I came across a hospital admission slip with the name on it. It  stunned me. I always knew it had happened, but never wanted to believe it. Mom and I were the only ones who knew. I never wanted to remember; I did not want to believe my own mother would go to such lengths to hide what had happened. She really was ashamed of me. I had become invisible. I hesitated. Should I show this to Steve, show my adult siblings, scream it from the rooftops? “I am not crazy, she did this to me, she changed my name, sacrificed me on the altar of shame!” I had become invisible. I did none of these things. Instead, I tossed the evidence in the fire and watched it burn.

I stay one night in the hospital. After admission I am taken up to the maternity ward; I assume they did not know where to put me. Abortion was not legal and little was taught of fetal development. Apparently, mom felt adoption was not an option. The clause I was under said that my health was in danger. I had not attempted to take my life but I had become catatonic. I have no word for the desperation I felt.

I was placed in a private room in the maternity ward. Mom stayed with me for a short while. I have since thought- how lonely her ride home must have been. Along with my overnight bag I had brought my knitting. My dad had made me these huge wooden needles out of some wooden dowels. He had filed a point at one end and glued two pennies on the other, so the yarn would not come off. I was knitting a bulky dark brown scarf. I had taught myself to knit and only knew one stitch, stockinette. I knitted into the night. I would never wear the scarf;  instead it would travel through my life folded neatly, holding the painful memory of who I was before and who I had become. I eventually placed it in a bag and gave it away. 

I anxiously waited for morning and the procedure to be over. The doctor had said, “then I could get on with my life.”

The nurses came and prepped me for surgery, then I was transferred to a gurney, wheeled down a brightly lit hallway and into a cold sterile surgery room. My legs were draped and lifted into cold metal stirrups; the doctor sat perched between my legs. I recognized his voice behind the sterile mask. With a fatherly kindness he touched my knee and assured me, “relax, soon this will all be over.”  The anesthesia forced a dreamless sleep as I surrendered. I woke up in the cold recovery room. For the first time in weeks, Ed stood beside me. A moment in time I will hold onto forever. I no longer felt alone, I no longer felt invisible. Ed saw the pain. I can only guess that he felt it too, the loss, the rush to make a decision to normalize life. Our voices were taken from us. We were just kids, caught in the web of ignorance. Our relationship ended shortly after the abortion. His part in it, was to pay half of the hospital cost. 

I have no remembrance of how I got home. 

I was in immense pain as I lay on our living room couch. My abdomen  cramped and there was a blood-soaked pad between my legs. Death poured out of me. An ugly reminder of the brutal act that had taken the life of my unborn child. I heard my mother approach, a rhythmic thud, step, step, as her crutches hit the tile floor.

Leaning on her crutches she asks, “How are you feeling?”

I answer, “I am sad.”

She points her bony finger at me and with a stern face, she commands, “You are never to speak of this to anyone, it is as if it never happened.” I lie in shock. Alone. In pain. Tears rolled down my cheeks, eventually soaking my pillow. 

Emotional, raw, and filled with shame, no voice to speak, no ear to hear, forever changed. I would return to school and life would start anew, that is what I was told, that is the lie I would live.

 I would pass Ed in the hallways and see he had a new girlfriend. I hope she took those sex education classes mom thought I did not need.

Steve and I married on January 19, 1974. We married young, nineteen, both wounded from our past, unaware of the effects that would have on our lives. Steve had come from a broken home, an alcoholic mother, a father that remarried, now a blended family, Steve, his sister and three step siblings would be family. Steve was and continues to be strong and focused. His desire was to have a large family, an attempt to create what he never had. Mom had warned me, after the abortion, that no man would want me. I was used and men would continue to use me. Steve was different. He knew my past: he loved me for who I was and not what happened to me. Our lives were full. We eventually bought land and moved to the country, raised our nine children, and lived organically before it was a buzzword. We had our problems, like most married couples. God’s grace has carried us through. Our youngest child was born on July 30, 1998,- when  I was forty-four years old. She was eleven when I began serious counseling for healing from the abortion.

The crying never stopped. Startled awake, I hear a baby crying in the distance. I check each of our children, they are sound asleep. I must be dreaming.

There it is again.  I rock my new little baby, she lies asleep in my arms, yet  I hear a distant cry. The crying continues, always leaving me searching, longing, covered with a blanket of shame, pushing into the abyss of silence.

It was not uncommon for me to count our children, especially after a gathering or a vacation outing. Nine, always, nine. It always felt unfinished. Never sharing these experiences with anyone brought anxiety, brought tears, brought counseling and the search to know if I was going crazy. I was being tortured by my thoughts of the abortion, I was no longer keeping the secret, it was keeping me.

I called our local pregnancy care center after learning they had an abortion recovery program. I signed up. I learned I was not alone, others had residual pain from their abortions. It had impacted all our lives. Unlike the doctor’s promise of ”soon this will be over, and you can get on with your life.”  The secret-keeping my mother had sworn me to loosened its grip. I had been trapped in an emotional prison. Lies spoken by the very hands that had shed innocent blood under the guise of helping.

Over the next few months, I heard other women’s stories. Some still walked in silence, others confessed to more than one abortion, followed by guilt and shame. I felt safe, heard, not judged, and for the first time in forty years, hopeful.

Steve had supported me going to this post-abortion group. He knew I needed to get help and that he lacked the tools to offer any. His love and support were a healing balm for this very difficult journey that we were both on.

One of the guidelines in the group was to not contact the father of the baby, unless of course you are married to him. Most were healing from the broken relationship of past lovers due to the abortion. Some of the fathers never knew. We came from all walks of life, all ages, all in need of healing.

The journey to healing had begun. I learned to forgive myself, my mother and father, and the ignorance of society.

What ever happened to Ed, the father of our baby, my first love at a very tender age of fifteen. Was it love? It felt like it. The question: Did he think of me? Did he suffer with shame, guilt? Did he hear the cry of an infant seeking comfort? I wanted a chance to sit with him, hear his voice, and listen to how he felt about the abortion. Why didn’t he fight for me and our baby?

I was sixty-seven as I sat scrolling my Facebook account when I came across a post with the name Simmons. That’s strange, since I have no friends with that name. However Facebook works, friend of a friend, it did not matter. I clicked the link and up popped a message of condolence for Kim who had lost her brother, Edward Simmons. My heart sank. I clicked on the obituary. It was him, Ed, the father of our baby. He had passed away suddenly in his home, at the age of 67. Further reading told of his two ex-wives and their combined three children. He was an Army veteran, which he joined after our graduation in 1973. The memorial had been in our hometown. I could not believe what I was reading, all these years I have had so many questions. I had imagined sitting across from him, having coffee, talking, asking, and answering years of questions that had piled high. 

I continued to scroll through pictures; he looked strong, and handsome. I realized at that moment that I still had a connection with him. The connection wasn’t one of lust. He was the father, the father of our baby that had been stolen from us. I was sad, disappointed, and other feelings I have no words for. I had waited too long to contact him, the time just never seemed right. The lingering questions will forever be unanswered: Did he think of me? The baby? Why did he never search for me? Or did he? Was there love for me, a connection? My hope for Ed is that he has found the rest in eternity that the world could never give.

At the end of the group sessions, which lasted six weeks, there was a private ceremony held at a small country church. My husband had supported me on my journey. I told Steve about a certificate that was given to each of us, a birth certificate of sorts, proof of life. With post abortion healing comes the reality of innocent life taken, many, by hands with good intentions, while other brutal heartless procedures were also included in the testimonies. I sat on even ground with broken hearts of would-be moms, women like myself, who will never get that knock on the door, phone call or letter in the mail with the words,” I think you could be my mom.” I can only speak for myself that the longing to hear those words is so deep, it is a soul wound that bleeds. 

When I received the certificate, I had come to forgive myself, God, and my mother. On this certificate was a spot for the baby’s name (we were encouraged to name our babies), a spot for my name, date of birth and death of my child, and if we chose, we could put the name of the father. I had no intention of putting  Ed’s name down. I showed Steve the certificate. Without hesitation he said, “Put my name as the father, I’ll adopt the baby. She will be ours.” Through many tears we filled out the certificate, and named our little girl, Precious.

The crying had stopped. My baby had been found, named, and brought into our family.

During my post-abortion healing journey, I decided to visit my mother, excited for the freedom I now felt, I wanted to share. I wanted to tell her that I forgave her for choices made. It was a cool fall day. I had played the conversation in my mind while driving to her house. Mom had been through a lot; my father had passed a few years prior. His passing brought many events to light that none of us children ever knew. Mom had not only been struggling with osteoarthritis, and poverty, but she had lived with a man who broke her heart through his infidelity. She suffered and endured so many of our family’s growing pains on her own. When I learned of my father’s infidelity I was enraged. I sat with my mother as she told me of the secret she had held throughout their entire marriage of fifty years. She shared her longings, struggles, feelings of being alone, and wondering if dad ever really loved her. When I asked her why she never left, she explained that back in her day (they were married in 1932), there was no place for women to go. Society had put the shame on the women and covered their eyes at the wanderings of unfaithful men, it almost seemed acceptable for men to wander and women to care for the home. Also, the Catholic church strongly frowned on divorce. 

My eyes were opened, and I began to see my story from her perspective. She truly had been alone in a society with little education pertaining to teen pregnancy, a church that would shun the very thought of an abortion, and her own broken emotional state, fearing judgment from her family and cracking the very image she had worked so hard to keep for so many years. I had not only been traumatized learning of my father’s very poor life choices, but I had been set free. A juxtaposition. Traumatized, to think he had shamed me all those years ago, claiming I  had tarnished the family name, when he had done that quite well himself. Free, because I had been given a view of what my mother had to live with all her married life, and very likely played a part in her decision-making. 

It seemed life was coming full circle. I enter through the sunroom to see her sitting comfortably at her dining room table, her little command center; tissue, magnifying glass for reading, newspaper, checkbook, any medication she needed to remind herself to take, place mat for her meals, portable phone, and a beautiful view of the bird feeders placed for her pleasure in her front yard. Mom was confined to a wheelchair and these were the things she needed.

“Hi mom.”

She turns her head slightly. Mom always looked like a bobblehead; she had no neck, seriously. It looked like her head rested on her shoulders. It didn’t help that she was five foot two and shrinking. Her father had nicknamed her, “Dot.”

“Rosemarie, is that you?”

“Sure is. I have something I want to share.”

I round the table and sit facing her.

” I’m going to a small group, like a support group.”

“Anything to do with the church?” Mom asks.

I had left the Catholic “faith” as they say, and it had been, and continues to be, a sore spot for my deeply devout family.

“No, it is a post-abortion recovery group.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rosemarie, you’re not saying anything, are you?”

“Yes, I am,” I say.” It has brought so much healing mom”

“Have you no shame?” she asks in her all-too-familiar disgusted tone.

“No actually, I don’t, not anymore.”

It had been over 40 years since that fateful day, and we had never spoken of the abortion, no one in my family had. It had become an invisible event. 

She reached for a tissue. Tears brimmed her eyes as I shared how we were not alone, there were so many others, so many stories. I spoke of how I heard a baby crying, for years, and I was never able to find the source. How, in the middle of the night, I would be startled awake by this crying infant. Mom’s tears began to fall, her hands dropped to her lap, her head bowed and she mumbled, “I heard it too.”

 I reached for her hand, skin like tissue paper, veins clearly visible, soft, and warm, and wrapped my hands around hers.

“Oh, mom.”

“I have heard a baby cry ever since that day. I felt God was punishing me.”

I leaned in. “Mom, God would never punish you. He would not haunt you. He has forgiven us.”

We both cried: her head rested on my shoulder. Her words were a whisper,” I am so sorry, I did what I thought I had to. I was afraid of losing you.”

 I fell in love with my mom that day. I saw her brokenness and felt her love.

“Mom, I love you. I understand. I am sorry for all the years we have both suffered. God holds the baby, and she has a name, Precious. The crying has stopped.” 

So many years of secret-keeping came to an end. The only sound was of mom weeping as she rested against me, in the long-awaited hug of mother and daughter.

 Prior to talking to my mother, before my father’s passing, I had tried to talk to him about the abortion. It was unsuccessful. His only response was, ”I don’t remember.”

The post-abortion recovery was worth the pain it took to bring me to a place of peace. For me, the longing to know freedom from shame and secret-keeping  drove me to tell my story. A journey that took years to get to a final leg of discovery. Gaining my voice back made me visible; I am here, I am whole. 

There is freedom and forgiveness. Colors are bright and distinct, bird songs are heard more clearly, the air that fills my lungs fills me with hope. When I count my children, I have added Precious to the list–that makes ten.