There are many things in life that happen to us where we may not have a choice. But most of life is choices. Everything we do is a choice. We do it because we have decided to do it, or have not decided to avoid doing it.
| Here are two choices | |
|---|---|
|
First Caress
In purity, from my heart and soul I quest
His love, mind heart body and soul, to access
Clad with no more than God has blessed A Dream for Darla - and dreams can come true |
Commit?
Seen under starlight
by dim moon light he is a precious sight
Before me he is seen
my heart grows keen but I am sixteen
Bright colors fade
but my mind is made into danger I wade
Together we fit
for life he's been bit forever we commit
I see him the next day
and he looks at me to say together forever with you, no way
A choice you make may not be a dream come true |
Commitment, whether for just a night, or for life, is an important choice that most of us will make during our lives. For some of us, it is a frequent choice; for others, a life long commitment. But no matter what your choice, or how often you make a such choice, every choice has an effect, a benefit and a consequence or a price. Before every choice, you should try to consider the price, and decide, is the benefit of the choice worth the price.
Here is a short story of one such choice I was dragged into a couple years ago, and the price paid.
Before you get any ideas, this is a story about an acquaintance of mine, and no I didn't have an abortion. My body may be a wonder land, but there is no admittance yet. And when there is, the price will be:
One special person, one ring of gold
The price is steep but for life the benefits hold
I'm still pure, perfect little Darla, barely had a first kiss never mind having done any of THAT. THAT being the initial action that results for some in a decision involving the abortion controversy. My own made up definition for THAT.
. . . (Note: This story was written long before I met Bob, who has paid the ring of gold price)
Abortion is a topic every women, even as young as me at 14 when this story took place, must at least think about. Some are dramatically impacted by the abortion controversy at an even younger age than 14, having already made one adult decision long before they are ready to do so.
This story starts with a boy. You can't have a story about abortion with at least one boy being involved. I've given a promise of confidentiality, and I don't break promises except for the usual reasons like threat of someone dying unless I do something. Then again, the question of dying is also part of this story. Anyway, I will include nothing here to reveal anyone's identity, except mine of course. As I started thinking about writing this story I still hadn’t decided if my part in this story is good, or bad. That's one of the reasons I'm writing this, what is my opinion in the abortion controversy? Hopefully by the end of the story I'll have a better idea. Like I said above, it's something all of us, especially young women, must think about.
As I was saying, this boy, just someone I know from school but not a close friend, comes to me with a dilemma and a question. After he explained his dilemma, and asked me his question, my first response was "Why do these people I know, but not really that well, come to me with these huge personal problems?" He said he knew he could trust me, and that I usually have the answer to every question. Almost made me scream, but, trying to be the adult here at the ripe old age of 14, I just smiled, or was it grimaced.
I can't give too many details without giving clues to who is involved in this story, but I can say it involved a boy and girl who did THAT, she got pregnant, panicked, cried, went to the boy and said, "HELP". The basic first steps in most abortion stories. The boy then came to me with his dilemma and question. And the question was, "I don't know what to do, I think we should get an abortion. Can you help us?" I don't really remember the exact words, but thats the basics of our several minute discussion.
Pardon me while I repeat "Why Me?" again.
But being who I am, since I helped that first poor person with a big problem, everyone seems to always expect me to have all the answers, I said "Let's all meet after school and maybe we can figure out what to do."
As always, I had to let mom know I'd be late getting home from school. And as always, I got the usual questions, "Whatcha doing? Who is going with you? When will you be home?" Not wanting to lie, and not being able to tell the whole truth since I already gave my promise to keep everything secret, I just said, "Hanging with some friends for a bit after school, I'll take the late activity bus home." She said OK, but not until after the usual talk about homework, and walking the dogs, and other chores as soon as I got home.
So we met after school, walking down behind the soccer field, usually no one is there after school in the spring. It was a beautiful spring day, warm and sunny; too nice a day for the pending discussion. Since the three of us don't usually hang together, they didn't want too many people seeing us together, we all agreed a nice secluded place behind the soccer field was best to avoid typical high school gossip.
Her eyes were all red and puffy, she'd been crying a lot. First thing I told her was "Stop with the water works young lady, you keep that up and this won't stay secret very long." I almost laughed when I said that, being only 14 myself who was I was calling a young lady; especially since she was older than me. But they came to me looking for adult advice from a 14 year old young lady, so I tried to act the part. They started giving me the details, all the details. I started to blush a bit and said, "Hey, I've never done THAT, but I know what THAT is, so I don't need to know everything."
So, without giving anything away, this is what happened. They did THAT, she thinks she got pregnant since the pregnancy test said so, she can't tell her mom because then she will be dead, and thinks she needs an abortion. On and on for about 15 minutes. Loads of questions pop into my head, no answers yet, but loads of questions. Why couldn't she talk to her mom, mom should be the most important person to discuss stuff like this? I wasn't on exactly great terms with my mom at the time, but she would still be the first person I would bring something like this to. And again, "Why me?" They thought that since they used protection they couldn't get pregnant, but weren't really sure what they were doing, did they do THAT wrong? Well obviously since she got pregnant they did THAT just fine, it was avoiding THAT where they went wrong. Again too many details about THAT, but sounds like they shouldn't have been doing things they weren't sure about. I tried to explain that no protection was 100% guaranteed, just like I learned in "The Talk" with mom; I don't think they understood. I tried mentioning the risk of diseases, and they both looked at me funny. The comment they gave was something like, "We're good, clean people, we can't get any of those." And I thought, good, clean people don't get unwanted pregnancies either, but not wanting to offend them any more, I stopped talking.
The next question almost made me laugh. I was trying to be their responsible adult, and not laugh at their dilemma, but then she asked "Do you think I can keep it secret until the baby was born?" I almost lost it. No way was she hiding a nine month pregnant belly. But I suppressed the almost erupting laughter, and simply said "No." I've heard that keeping the big belly secret for nine months has been done, but not with this young lady. She was way to emotional to hide anything, never mind something this big. I was surprised the whole school didn't know already, especially the way she kept blubbering. Also being the school gossip queen, I guess she was better at keeping her own secrets than everyone else's secrets. She was also very skinny, the kind most boys like. All ta-tas and not much else, especially between the ears. Hopefully I'm not giving any away clues to her identity.
Well, after a few more questions, we finally got to the big one, "How do I get an abortion?" The actual question was more like, "OMG, I can't do this, mom's going to freaken kill me. My friends, what will they think. I got get this thing out of me, you got to help me, what do I do to get rid of this?" The boy said, "I'm not worried about your mom or your friends, your dad's going to kill me, and then my dad's going to kill me."
Being only 14, never having done THAT, never having thought much about abortion before, this was a question I couldn’t answer. But I knew how to get an answer. So I told them, "First, you got to get hold of your self. No more panicking." I wanted to say "No more little cry baby," but trying to be the adult I didn't.
Next I told them I would look into it and talk to them again tomorrow. I was sure they couldn’t keep it secret that long, but I was surprised. In fact, as far as I know, even a couple years later, the three of us are still the only ones that know.
That night I did some research on the internet. Good thing mom trusts me on the internet, nothing is blocked. Or as I think back, was it a good thing? I was shocked to find out how easy it is to get an abortion. There were two clinics in town. We couldn't go to them, getting an abortion in town wasn't the best way to keep it secret. I finally decided on a place across the river, in Jersey. It looked like the neighborhood wasn't too bad, but what do I know about Jersey; and it would only take two buses.
We got together the next day. It took a while to make our plans, but two weeks later, and two bus rides there and back, it was done. Two hours in the clinic, a few questions, a few forms, some time with the doctor, and she was back out of the exam/procedure room. I waited out in the waiting area with the boy. When she was done, she didn't really want to talk much about what happened. But even at her ripe young age, she had no problem getting through the procedure.
On the way home, she tried to hold it in, but she still cried a lot. The only thing the boy said was thanks. He mostly just looked out the window. The girl wanted to hold his hand, he would for a just minute but than pull away. I think he was just relieved it was over, no more being a young daddy for him. The girl slowly got over the tears. We talked again about keeping it secret, which was her biggest worry, "What would everyone say if they knew?" Otherwise, it was a pretty quite ride back from Jersey. The only thing I felt bad about at the time was that I had to lie to mom about what I was doing that day. Up to then I hadn't really thought about the abortion itself. It had just been a big project to plan, a daring adventure.
One thing about the clinic that struck me as very odd was the two sides of the street. On one side was the clinic, there was actually a short line of people waiting to enter. That alone made me think, "Why so many?" On the other side was a line of people standing in a nice straight row, silently holding up anti-abortion signs. I found out later that the law requires them to protest no closer than across the street, in silence, with no interference in the line of patients across the street entering the clinic.
Over the next few days, and weeks, I would see her in the hallways in school. Our eyes met as we passed; we knew we had a huge secret between us. Aside from a few polite discussions about nothing we didn't really talk to each other. And we never mentioned our trip to Jersey. What was done was done. I very rarely saw the boy, I don’t think I ever said anything to him again. I did my job again, I helped someone who was in desperate need of help, and then we all moved on. I don't think the happy couple ever really talked much to each other again after that. I know they were no longer a happy couple. The boy was dating someone else within a week. A couple months later I also heard the girl was doing THAT with someone else. Maybe just school gossip, but true or not it was obvious she had moved on. Lessons learned, or not, she was back in the love boat.
But since then I've had time to think about whether my part in the whole adventure was good or bad. What is my opinion in the whole abortion controversy? Where do I stand on Roe v. Wade?
Mom and I discussed briefly the abortion issue during "The Talk." Actually over the years it was quite a few "talks." She told me a little about abortions before Roe v. Wade, she called them dark alley, back room butcher shops. I think she even mentioned something about wire hangers, glad she didn't go into any details on that. Mom is against abortion, very pro-life. But she didn't seem to like what was happening before the Supreme Court set women free.
"Set women free." Free to do what, get abortions, have the final say over her body, and that of an unborn infant? Or free to do THAT, any time, with any body, and not worry too much about the price? Yes, for every decision there is a price.
I did some more research on the internet; you can always trust the internet to give you lots of information. And some of it is even true and sometimes useful. I'm still young, so I can't say my opinion is final, and I would never tell anyone that my opinion should also be their opinion. I believe that it was not the Roe v. Wade decision that was wrong. I think the fact that the issue needed to be brought to the Supreme Court in the first place was wrong. Why were people doing THAT without accepting the responsibilities for what happens when you do THAT. Maybe instead of needing a court to set them free, maybe they should be thinking for themselves and accepting responsibility for their actions before doing THAT.
People shouldn't be doing things, and not worry about the price. There is a right time and right place for everything. And some things should not be done at the wrong time, with any body. I don't think people should be doing things, especially those too young to know what the're doing, and not worry first about the tears, the emotions, the trips across the river. I think there are way too many abortions because people just do THAT, and don't think first. I've decided I hate abortions, but abortions are not the problem. The problem with abortions, as with most of the problems in this world, is that people act before they think. Fun now, and don't even think about pay later. You shouldn’t do THAT, until you’re ready for THAT and everything that comes with it. If you don't want to cross the river, than don't get in the boat. Once you cross the river, coming back is never the same, the price has been paid, and you can't get that price back ever again.
In that last few years, I've learned a bit about the dance between life and death. After my trip across the river, and the loss and near loss of loved ones, the near loss of myself in those dark days not so long ago, I've decided life is precious. Even though I wasn't the mom, I think I’ll regret, until the day I die, the little life that ended that day.
ABORTION
Life comes for us all, and life goes in due time
But death with no life for some who committed no crime
On one side of the street, the line to take a life
On the other side posters in silent protest and strife
Inside are words of kindness, and words of death
Outside is sadness and anger, a hope for life's breath
Do they know what they do, it's a life and death dance
From the helpless comes the final scream of silence
But is abortion really the problem, or is it the symptom
Is the disease the suffering unborn or a much deeper doom
The little one's suffer, young mothers loose heart
But the real evil is what happens at the start
A moment of pleasure, a moment of lust
A spark of life with a soul that is just
A moment of weakness, is it a moment of sin
It causes an unwanted life to begin
The same in this country, it's all over the world
Lack of morals with lust, greed, and self sold
Voiceless they scream, in silence they die
What can we do but watch and cry
I'm now 21, married, and pregnant. With this precious little bundle growing inside me, I can't understand how anyone could consider an abortion. But as I said in the story, "I would never tell anyone that my opinion should also be their opinion." However, I still think people should think more before doing THAT (it feels kind of weird to call it THAT now). I know it's your body, and can do what you want with it. But most people won't jump off a bridge, or eat a box of broken glass, or go into the sleaziest bar you can find and ask if there's anyone with AIDS who will have sex with you.
The right to do what you want with your body comes with responsibilities to yourself as well as those around you. To make a grown up decision such as to have sex comes with the responsibility to be prepared for the possibilities. So, have sex if that's what you really want to do, but do it responsibly. Know what your getting into, talk to your partner, take the proper precautions if needed (not just for pregnancy, but for the many STDs traveling around). Of course there are other reasons to think about abortion, such as rape or life threatening health conditions. That's not what this story is about. It's simply thinking about the potential consequences before you act and being prepared and knowledgeable about what your doing.
If more people were more thoughtful before doing THAT, I believe there would be significantly fewer abortions, and STDs.
NEXT ---> Uncle Bill
