CRC #79

I watched them, the old woman and the baby, and thought back to when I could have had babies.  It seemed a lifetime ago, as I stood outside the glass wall, watching the volunteer cuddle and coo at the child whose mother was not there.  I had only lost that particular ability three years before, and now, as a woman of middle years with no one to answer to, I felt the loss as keenly as I had when I was a mere girl, and my babies had been lost to me.

I closed my eyes, reliving the horror of my discovery that I was pregnant.  I was sixteen, and the father of my unborn children -- I had discovered I was pregnant with twins at my first ultrasound, three months in -- was a freshman in college, on a football scholarship, with a brain that would have won him an academic one had he been so inclined.  His mother was a single mom, and he had lived on the other side of town from me.  Our lives were as different as day and night, and I had known, even then, that to saddle him with the responsibility of children would have been the wrong thing to do. 

One of my two best friends had advised me to get an abortion, but the thought of asking a stranger to relieve me of my own responsibility as a consenting partner in the creation of these two lives was abhorrent to me.   My other friend told me I could give them away after they were born.  I chose her option, though the months between that and their birth would be hard on me, and on my parents, who were as angry as I had ever seen them, and confused and frightened for me as well.

And then, one day, coming home from school, I crossed the road at the corner of our street without looking, and lost not only my babies but my desire to have any ever again.  What I gained, instead,was guilt.  I lived with the fear that I had walked in front of that truck deliberately, because I really had not wanted them, and had wanted to die with them, rather than have them butchered and washed out of my womb by a doctor.   It was my fault, I was sure of it, and nothing the grief counselor, or my parents, or my pastor said had ever changed my certainty.

Dragging my thoughts back to the present, I watched as the infant slept, and the volunteer nestled her contentedly against her motherly chest.  I wondered where the baby's mother was, and suddenly, as I fought against the painful tears that welled up, I prayed fiercely that God would give this child a home, and keep her safe.  I had volunteered to work in the newborn baby unit of the hospital, hoping to find some peace from the nightmares that had come back (after half a lifetime away) at least once a week now, of the doctor's face as he told me that they had not been able to save my babies.

My babies!  I had never given myself a chance to say those words, because I was afraid I would lose them again, and I knew I had no more heart left over to break.  The broken one had never healed.

"Are you all right, Tansy?"

The voice near my left ear startled me, and shook the welling tears out and down my cheeks.  I tried to brush them away surreptitiously, but she saw, and turned me to face her, hiding me from public view.

"Tansy, you don't have to do this, you know.  There are other places to volunteer here!"

I sniffed like a child, and my face burned with embarrassment that anyone had seen the cracks in my armor.  "I'm fine, Jaz, honestly.  Just point me to my post!" 

I was determined to be like the old woman who had by now placed the sleeping infant back in her bassinet, and was cuddling a squalling little boy.  I wanted peace, and maybe at last I would find it.  Here.