Shining Light on Our Unborn

My 16 year old daughter surprised me this year with one of the people she chose to remember this year on Day of the Dead. This Mexican holiday to honor family and friends who have died, is one my kids have celebrated since they were in pre-school. It is observed annually on October 31, November 1 and November 2.

My daughter was 13 years old when I told her about my abortion. She already knew about the mechanics of sex and was dancing with the possibility of dating. Not one to shy away from the tough conversations with my kids (you should be a fly on the wall during some of our dinner conversations!), and knowing she was well aware of my human imperfections, I shared with her part of my history she did not know. 

She was compassionate listener. Our discussion about sex and dating suddenly rose to a whole new level. Most likely in shock over what I had shared, she was extraordinarily kind, loving and careful in her responses. 

Over the years as she has processed what my experience meant to her, it became obvious that my choice deeply affected her as well. She does not have the “big sister” she says she always wanted. I hope one day she will share in her words the emotions she felt as she matured with this knowledge. There have been times when she was angry with me and has said so. Other times she has felt sad and incomplete. The range of emotions for her in losing someone she never knew has been complicated and complex. In a day and age where people have difficulty sharing grief for any reason, let alone from having an abortion, how does a child express their feelings over a sibling lost that way?


Many would say that I should not have told my young daughter about my experience – there are some things that we should just keep to ourselves. And while I would agree there are some things we should feel permitted to hold onto, for me, this was not one of them. 

My grandmother did not tell me about her abortion until she was 93 years old (http://christinaehaas.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-i-write-about-abortion-my.html ). I suffered many years in isolation about my own abortion, and all along I shared this experience with one of my most beloved family members. If I had known about her abortion, would I have handled that pregnancy any differently? Perhaps, although I doubt it. However, I do believe my response to my experience would have been far different. 

Will my admission help my daughter? Having been on the other side, it seems it’s worth a shot to have shared this with her and to find out what it means to her. If nothing else, I hope I have given her reason to honor her body in relationship and to honor her inner guidance in her choices. Maybe in time, she will be able to feel her sister’s loving presence the same way I do.


I am sure you can guess by now who my daughter chose to remember during the Day of the Dead ceremony this year. She spoke of Mary’s existence in her circle of friends and by doing so honored her presence in our lives and in the world.

Hearing that she honored Mary's existence in a public way was a bittersweet, and beautiful moment. It fills me with hope to see her shine light on her sister's life, and to be brave enough to publicly share her feelings.

I have been blessed with two amazing daughters.

Namaste.

Who Gets the Lifesaver?

When my grandmother told me that she had an abortion back in 2003 (Mor-Mor's story ), I was still too caught up in my own shame to think much about her experience. As I have studied abortion and learned just how many women are already mothers when they have an abortion, I began to think more about this fact (abortion statistics). Why is it that a mother would choose to terminate a pregnancy?

One possible answer comes from understanding my grandmother’s life experience. Shortly after she died, my mom wrote all of her grandchildren a letter, telling us the few details of Mor-Mor’s life that she knew. My grandmother was very private and quiet about her life, and none of us really knew much about her past. 

What I knew already was that Mor-Mor’s father died of pneumonia when she was nine years old. From reading my mother’s letter, I learned how hard her life had been after that. Her mother, a first generation Swedish immigrant, worked as a housekeeper, had many jobs and moved frequently. Sometimes, Mor-Mor would be left with cousins for periods of time while her mother sought work without the encumbrance of a child. She became a nanny at age thirteen, working for a family on Long Island, while also holding down a job as a waitress. She never finished high school, instead taking secretarial courses during her sophomore year so that she could develop business skills to help provide for the family. She began working for the New York Telephone Co. when she was just fifteen years old, although she claimed she was really seventeen in order to get the job.

Her childhood was fraught with hardship, loneliness and scarcity.

My grandfather emigrated from Sweden also, and they met shortly after he arrived in America. They married young and had my aunt during the Depression. My aunt was often sick, afflicted with asthma and other medical problems. As I think about what it might have been like for her to live, how her own childhood experiences informed her decision-making, I feel deeply for her.

 

It must have felt a lot like watching two kids drowning and having only one lifesaver. Who can she save? 

I have met many women over the years who have also had childhoods filled with scarcity, others with abuse (Childhood Experiences ). I suspect they feel a lot like my grandmother must have felt – tired, fearful, overwhelmed and alone. No woman wants to have an abortion. It feels like a choice born of necessity. 

I hope that the stories I share will help other women know that they are not alone and there is no shame in their choice of an abortion. As we bring our stories to the light, forgive and heal ourselves, maybe we can change the experience of the generations of women to come.

 

Maybe we can change the question from “who gets the lifesaver?” to “how can we support the life we that already exists?”

Namaste.

 

 

Cracked Open – Again

Have you ever been at a place where you thought you had freed yourself of all the baggage from the past? Cleaned all those skeletons out of the closet, only to find there was yet another piece to be cleared?

Well, that was my experience this past week. And boy, was it a doozy!

 

I thought I had done all my clearing of the past. However, last week, at a family reunion, I discovered another deep wound needing to be healed and brought into the light.   

This was not your ordinary family reunion. This was a “soul” family reunion, many of us meeting for the first time. As those of us who already knew each other hugged, one of my sisters greeted me, telling me how relaxed and beautiful I looked. Yes, beautiful. 

“Me?” I questioned. “Really?”

“Yes you," she replied adamantly. “Don’t you see it?”

I was definitely feeling more relaxed since the last time we were together, that was true, but beautiful? I wasn’t feeling THAT. As she persisted, I finally said I was flattered, but just did not see what she saw. On the verge of tears, I tried to change the subject. 


She was one of three people that day who told me how beautiful I looked. Yet I was not able to own that compliment. 

Serendipitously, through a series of God-incidences the next day, I realized that my feelings of unworthiness stemmed from the need to shine light on one of my oldest relationships. My relationship with my father. 

I sat down and wrote my dad a letter – a letter that would never be mailed - pouring out all of the hurts, all of the anguish. Decades of unprocessed memories of not feeling accepted or loved filled the page as I let the pain out, flowing like white waters in a turbulent river, unable to stop until they were completely emptied onto the page. Before now, I believed because I had intellectually processed my hurt, I was done with that work. But until my heart was cracked wide open, the way it was then and there, no mental justification was going to make me whole.


The details of my experience with my dad do not matter here. What does matter and bear sharing, is that the things that hurt, the things we hide and hold deep in our hearts, are the things that hold us back and keep us from shining our true beauty and light. Allowing the sadness to come out, to feel the hurt and pain, was necessary in order to embrace my authentic self.  

The next and last day of our reunion, I had made some new, intimate friends. As I walked towards my seat on that final day, one of them stopped me and said “Do you know how pretty you are? And you are not wearing any make-up either, are you?”

“Thank you.” I replied. I paused and looked her in the eyes. “You have no idea how meaningful those words are to me right now.” 

As I walked back to my seat, another woman stopped me with a similar compliment. 

Another illusion had been shattered. And miraculously, embracing the reality of all of it felt liberating and wonderful!


Just then, the music started to play again. As Abba’s Dancing Queen started to play, I grabbed my new friend’s hands and said “let’s go!” I was ready to own who I was, all of it, and it felt great.

Am I there yet? Time will tell. But for now, I am ready to shine a whole lot brighter!

Namaste.