When I was 18, I got pregnant. This was shocking to me – I was using birth control, and I worked in a university birth control clinic, where we helped women get abortions, and provided birth control information. So, I very capably arranged for my own abortion, believing it was the right thing to do because I couldn’t go through with a pregnancy, or raise a child. Interestingly, our clinic never suggested giving the child up for adoption.
My abortion caused me to have a serious pelvic inflammatory disease and to lose my job. My colleagues at the clinic were uncomfortable with my abortion – it reminded some of them about their own abortions, which confused me because abortions were acceptable, so why the bad feelings? So now I was out a job, and worried about my future fertility. I moved on. Had a family, a career, a good life – but always, I didn’t forget. No depression, no addiction, just a hardened heart with a hole in it. I was somewhat distant to my children, my husband, and close ones. Nobody really got in.
Except God. And His mom. One night. I was praying, and it suddenly came to me with a torrent of emotion and tears – I had lost my child. I had lost my child and had not grieved, had not acknowledged, had not named, had not held, had not felt, or smelled or fed or laughed with or cried about. My child was gone without even a whisper of love from me. I cried with grief, regret, and shame. And then I felt Mary put her arms around me and cry with me. With compassion. Great life-giving compassion.
I brought my grief and repentance to a priest in confession, and I went on a retreat with other women who had had abortions. I named my child. I gave my child my heart. This has allowed me to give my heart to my family and friends, and to myself. All that time, I had not forgotten. That tiny teddy bear on the Christmas tree reminded me. Many things quietly reminded me. I just didn’t go there. But I knew, I remembered. And God had not forgotten. Not my child, and not me. He had waited and had gently called me to come back. That is what waiting is – a vigil of not forgetting.
To all the women and men who have lost a child to abortion and have not acknowledged or named or missed your child – you really have not forgotten, and God has not forgotten – neither you nor your child. Don’t be afraid to go there – to go to that place of love for that child, for that mother, that father. You really haven’t forgotten, and God has not forgotten.