Dead Baby Talking

A poem. A song. A scream toward heaven. Anything, something. A way for me to communicate the sorrow and shame I feel for the monumental regret of my life.

Dear child, if only I could sacrifice the god of “I” to the God of Mercy who is blessedly with you, comforting you. To bring you back. On behalf of everyone who killed innocence in the womb.

________

You are my father and you abandoned me. Why?

“You weren’t important. I had other priorities. Hell, you weren’t even a ‘you’.”

But I am, you know. We all are. It’s undeniable.

“That, dear love, was an inconvenient truth that I couldn’t handle.”

I was inconvenient?

“You were responsibility, commitment, disruption, expensive, awkward, burdensome, enslaving. Unwanted things.”

And my mother felt the same way?
Silence.

Father?

“I don’t know what your mother was thinking. I’m only assuming. I barely knew her.”

I don’t understand.
“I used your mother as entertainment. It felt good. At the time, that’s all that mattered.”

You never talked to my mother about my life?

“No.”

After I was gone, did you think about me?

“Not much. I hid you away where even I couldn’t find you. You would have haunted me, don’t you see?”

That’s sad.

“It’s worse than that. My soul on a rack for eternity, even if that were possible, would not be justice enough.”

Did you know what they were going to do to me? That place where very bad things happen?

“I do now. But truthfully, then, I never thought about it. So strange. My lack of curiosity was some sort of passive denial.”

Which meant you denied me. But I’m as real as the sun.

“And infinitely more glorious.”

Hocus pocus. 

“What are you saying?”

Doesn’t that magically change things? I want that day to never happen. I just want to be with you, father. And mother, too.

“How can you say that? We were both complicit in your murder!”

Because I love you both. When you spend time with God, who is love, you understand all things. How can I not love the two people who created me?

“I don’t deserve it.”

The grace of God. Some day, it will make sense. I have so much to tell you, just know now that I forgive you … completely and unconditionally. 

“Which is unfathomable to me. But face to face, someday, with you? I just can’t imagine. Thank you for your absolution. If I get to heaven, please find me. I have no idea how it works there, but the second I arrive would be good. Just so you know, I’ve never stopped crying for you. In the presence of God, I denied you life–my crime against humanity.”

__________

Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. The Declaration of Independence is quite sage in ascribing these rights as unalienable–rights granted by God. One could argue the definitions of liberty and happiness, and we do. But life is one of those things that exists or it does not. Nothing grey about it.

America, we could not be more wrong in our acceptance of abortion. If we continue down this selfish path, this denial of God’s gift, our national death spiral will be irrecoverable.

Let me make an observation. And like most, it will be a general one. In other words, there will be exceptions to the blanket condemnation I’m about to make.

The abortion debate in Texas has been quite a spectacle. Kids holding up signs that say, “If I wanted the government in my womb, I’d f*** a senator.” Their mothers nearby–prompting this display. Besides the hideous irony, I understand the point they’re trying to make, however crude it may be. Sacred, personal ground that womb is. Absolutely.

To all mothers who support such a sign or its theme, it seems to me that your womb is only sorta sacred. God forbid the figurative trespassing of a politician in your uterus but you’re still willing to let a butcher explore your hallowed parts with weapons of micro destruction so that he or she can find, torture and kill your baby. And then dismember and drag them out in pieces to be put in jars or toilets or on piles of bloody rags. On special days, maybe this friend of woman–this humanitarian–will have the opportunity to cut a spinal cord or two and on rare occasions, no doubt, tell a joke.

Interestingly, you invited this servant of feminism into the uteral premises. An honored guest apparently. Did you really not understand what was about to happen?

And there are millions like you.

Strange.

Tragic.

And whether you will acknowledge it or reject it, it doesn’t matter. It remains unspeakable evil. The abortion act. Not you.

Dear women, your womb is indeed sacred. But if it’s turned into a killing field, shouldn’t society intervene and protect the child–your child–before they’re slaughtered?

Because you’re not. You of all persons should be the first line of defense for your baby. However, you’ve surrendered that role to selfish rationalization.

It comes to this. I’d like to get my head around this whole abortion thing–so that I can understand it from your perspective. To be more compassionate, less angry. I just can’t get there and I’m really trying.