LIFE DAY (up close and personal)

It had not been a good year.  1974 started out with a brutal rape.  It was followed shortly thereafter by the heartache of a broken engagement.  When I thought I was just getting my life back together, it appeared as though my year was going to end with an unwanted pregnancy.

Colorado was one of the few States at the time where abortion was legal, and while I found everything about the thought abhorrent, I was unmarried, pregnant, and scared.  At the age of 21, I was not prepared for this, was in an absolute state of unreality and denial, and so I made an appointment to terminate the pregnancy.

Boulder CO was a progressive and liberal City, and there was a clinic near campus.  I knew if I told anyone that I was pregnant that I would not be able to go thru with it, so on the morning of October 17, I went and sat in the waiting area with a room full of young teenage girls and their mothers, young girls who also found themselves in unwanted situations, and now had a legal avenue to pretend like it had never happened.

A blur of sights and sounds, it was a surreal experience waiting for my turn when they would call me for my 'procedure.'  Having been raised in a strict Catholic family, I was going to be able to hide my ‘sin and transgression’ so that no one would ever know what I had done ~ no one but me.

I watched the young girls with their mothers, laughing as though they were out for an afternoon tea, laughing as though we were not there to make life-altering decisions that day.  I tried to make myself numb to the reality of what was going on around me.  If I didn’t think about it, it couldn’t hurt me, right?  I had learned that lesson earlier in the year, and I was pulling that cloak around me again.

Finally it was my turn.  They called my name and told me that I would follow the nurse to the back room, and that it wouldn’t take long.  As I stood at the desk getting ready to pay to keep my secret, my focus somehow altered.  I looked at the receptionist, I looked at the young girls around me who seemed so unconcerned with what they were doing, with the mothers who sat with them, believing that they were doing what was best for their young daughters, and I knew I couldn’t go thru with it.  

Without a word, I put on my coat and walked out the door.  I found the nearest payphone and called my mother, knowing that with that act, my child’s life would no longer be in jeopardy.  I called the baby’s father, knowing that he desperately wanted to marry me, and told him that we needed to talk.

For the past 36 years on October 17, I have celebrated what we call the Life Day of my first born daughter. When she was old enough to understand, I told her about the decision of her young mother that day, and how I had never once regretted it, and how thankful I have always been that she is mine.  For many years now, it has been a close and special bonding time between us, and is truly a time of rejoicing.

As we celebrate her Life Day today, as we celebrate another year of her life, and as I get older and (hopefully) wiser, I realize that each day presents us with choices, and each of those choices has a consequence ~ good or bad.  There is really no way to show my special feelings for this precious, precious life with which I have been blessed.  But I will never grow tired of saying the words, “I love you, Betsy, I’m so glad you’re my daughter.”

Here is a video of Betsy that I found from several years ago . . .