We All Have Lost All of Them....

from my FB friend and ex-student:  

Krista Work.  Wonderful Post!

I can hear my dear Little Son entertaining himself while he tries not to nap. He's singing his own versions of
"The Wheels on the Bus" and "Ten Green Bottles." He is talking to his stuffed animals and making them
answer back--using their 'voices.' When we drive places he observes that green means go and red means
stop. He likes me to repeat Hickory Dickory Dock. He calls his daddy his buddy. He runs down hills. He

says "Whee" when we drive around corners.

Yet he was once so small and undeveloped he couldn't lift his head to drink his milk-- I had to do that for

him! He was once so small and undeveloped he couldn't regulate his body temperature--I did that for him! 

He couldn't digest food, or move his arms and legs. Once he didn't even have arms, or legs, or a brain, or 

any body parts. But he was still himself, a precious child, an individual--when in his development would it 

have been appropriate to exterminate him from my life?

Yes, I will be the first to agree that having a child is costly, hard, uncomfortable, painful, tedious, boring, 

humiliating, difficult, encumbering. But isn't a person worth it? He's worth it for his own sake, let alone all the 

benefit he brings into my life. Caring for him makes me more patient, more kind, more tolerant, stronger, 

better able to endure through discomfort, pain, humiliation, boredom, tedium.

Roe v. Wade is a personal issue to me. Motherhood and parenting are valued, cherished parts of my life. I 

was once pregnant, and I gave birth to a baby boy. Now he is nearly two. I am pregnant again--12 weeks 

along, and the fetus has all his/her body parts, completely unique DNA, a separate blood supply that does 

not mix with mine. Someday this pregnancy will result in a child's birth and the expansion of our family.

Yes, Roe v. Wade is personal to me. I think of my own Dear Son and of all the dear sons and daughters that 

are NOT here--people who should be living, breathing, active thirty somethings, twenty somethings, college 

kids, teenagers, tweens, kindergartners, toddlers, babies--perhaps even some of the Newtown teachers' 

coworkers, some of those kids' classmates and schoolmates--some of the Columbine kids' classmates and 

locker neighbors--some of the Virginia Tech kids' classmates and roommates-- We grieve and mourn 

because of all those that have been killed in shootings and terrorist attacks and wars and diseases, but these 

50,000,000 kids have been lost and their empty seats at the table, empty places in classrooms, empty 

lockers and dorm rooms and cubicles and offices and desks are just as empty.

Grieve their loss as well. We've all lost them. Women who should have been mothers, men who ought to 

have been dads...should-have-been sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents, ought-to-

have-been classmates, roommates, cubicle neighbors, teachers and principals, teammates, mechanics, 

electricians, plumbers, doctors, nurses...the list goes on and on.

Philosophy and theology can state truths. So can statistics and math. But empty cribs, missing friends, absent 

colleagues--to me they are more eloquent. I'm lonely for the 50,000,000. My life is all the richer for just +1, 

my Little Son. How much are we all missing with a deficit of 50,000,000 people?