Monday, December 20, 2004

Darkness Falls






warning - darkness ahead













Something is terribly wrong in a society when pregnant women can be abducted and murdered so that their babies can be stolen. I read the story of the girl in Missouri who was recently killed. And when I read that it wasn't the first time it had happened, it shocked me to the core.

I could say, "What the $&#@???" But that wouldn't even begin to convey the depth of my outrage. I try every day to see things from the other side, but here even my imagination fails me - and quite frankly, I'm glad it does. I don't ever want to be inside the head of the person who could do - or even conceive of - such an act.

I can't help but take such a thing personally. I can't help but wonder "what if" - when I know so many mothers and so many daughters - and when I'm both, too. When it could have been my mother - or it could have been me. When three women I know are pregnant and one is only a month away from her first child. It makes me sick. It makes me cry. It makes me grieve for what could have been - for the love that I have for my daughter to have been stolen away from a mother before she could even hold her baby in her arms - for her to be left alive in blood and in unimaginable pain, while another woman walked away with her baby.

I'm not a fan of the death penalty - never have been, and this is not going to change my mind. But I sincerely hope that the woman who was responsible for this someday meets Kali face to face and begins to understand what karma really is. And if she happens to be reincarnated as a cockroach and her victim is brought back as a child with certain intense scientific interests in entomology, dissection and breeding, so much the better.

I read in a related article (yeah, I know, don't give me internet access certain times of the month) that if you're in the state of Washington DC and you're pregnant, you are more likely to die from homicide than to die from a pregnancy-related accident or illness. And to me, that's just $&*#ing sick.

So if you know any pregnant women, pray for them. See them safely delivered and safely home, wrapped in the caring and love of their families. See them blessed with joy in their children, abundant milk, loving friends and families like mine who can help them stay sane, and years of maternal struggles and triumphs ahead of them. Because if you struggle with motherhood, as I do, as many of us do, it means, among other things, that you're still alive to fight. And that's an enormous blessing, all by itself.

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