Everything about the woman was foreign territory.
Yes, she was polite. Yes, she smiled often. Yet her reserve kept her at a distance, holding everyone at bay.
I wondered if it was the age, or the fact that she was married and living the suburban lifestyle with a husband and child. The rest of us were easily ten years younger.
We were co-workers. I was in my early twenties, and she was mid-thirties. We discussed a project occasionally, or made small talk over the latest fashions or a new bookstore in town. She rarely spoke of her husband or son, but then I expected it was because she thought we weren’t interested.
And at the time? I imagine I wasn’t. Though I think of her now, and of her secret, and the day that she revealed it.
My life was about dating and day-timers, about working hard and dreams of graduate school, about scrimping for a new jacket or better yet, the latest designer pumps at my favorite discount shoe boutique.
And then there was the lunch.
The lunch, and her placid demeanor after a few days of absence, and my innocent question about how she was feeling.
“I’m alright,” she said. “I was pregnant, but I took care of it.”
I was stunned, and trying to process. She was pregnant, but she took care of it.
“Excuse me?”
She picked at her food. She seemed far away.
“One child is enough,” she said. And again there was silence.
I can’t recall what else we discussed and I suppose we fell back into our usual rhythm – a colleague’s dress, the latest movie, the annoyance of an upcoming deadline.
Ironically, abortion was less politicized in those days, and my assumption – the assumption of many? – that it was a choice about economics, a choice for single women, a choice for teenagers who certainly weren’t ready to be mothers. It was a choice for women who were raped, women whose health was at risk, or even if employed and educated – women with no family to assist them in carrying the responsibilities of single motherhood.
At the time of this strange disclosure – stranger still because we were only acquainted and not friends – I shut down a stream of questions I would never have dared to ask.
And still, I wonder.
Did she suffer from a medical problem that none of us knew about? Did her son who was six or seven have a medical problem? Was the father someone other than her husband, or did her husband abuse her? Was he leaving her? Was she leaving him?
I remember her name. I remember her face. I remember the sound of her voice.
I remember her sadness, or was it simply my perception that she was sad.
Emptiness. Yes, emptiness or maybe fatigue. Those seem more like it.
I had visited her home in an affluent area, and everything seemed picture perfect. Of course now, decades later, that in itself would mean little. But today, I ask myself if it might have been a lifestyle choice. If something in her simply recognized that she could parent one child well, but more would rock the boat. Whatever the balance was in her household, she knew what she wanted, and she owned it.
As a woman, as an older mother, as one who wanted more children though my husband did not, as a single mother who has struggled to raise boys largely on my own – I remain immeasurably appreciative that I was fertile, able to give birth to healthy children, and that I’ve experienced the privilege of raising them.
I can imagine circumstances in which I would choose abortion for myself, but those circumstances are extremely narrow and have more to do with my boys than anything else. But there are so many situations I have not lived. And for others, I couldn’t begin to imagine their reasons, and for that reason, I believe their choices are theirs alone.
Knowing what I know now about mothering, I would never impose my choices on another woman, nor judge circumstances that only she can know.
And yet I’ll never forget that strange disclosure. And nor will I cease to wonder about her reasons, and if she ever regretted her decision.
Touching story, and so many questions. I wonder if she just needed to tell someone and you were the “lucky” one. I have never been faced to deal with an unwanted pregnancy, but to those who have that decision must be wrenching.
Maybe so, Linda. Not sure why I’ve been thinking about her lately. Perhaps as my own children are growing up, and wondering about the other babies I wanted, and the many variations of choices women make at different stages?
It does seem strange that she would disclose something like that to a colleague/acquaintance. It’s almost as if she *wanted* to talk about it (or needed to). I wonder if she would have completely opened up if you had prompted her, or if she would have just dismissed it. You never know what goes on it people’s lives, do you? I have gone through some pretty serious issues/decisions in my life that my colleagues would NEVER suspect. I guess we all have some skeletons in our closets. Interesting story – thanks for sharing!
Yes, the conversation leaves many more questions than answers. Still, I find it sad that “it” was taken care of this way.
Very powerful words. I won’t go into detail here, and maybe you have already read, however, I have had opportunity to be in both her shoes (pregnant with a big decision to make) and yours (pregnant and extremely excited for the coming of the child). I am so pleased to hear when other women share your insight. Of course we wonder what goes through one’s mind in many situations that our gut tells us we would choose to deal with other than they have. But to judge based on little information, or many times enough information, is just not fair or decent. I applaud that you did not.
Thank you for your feedback, NAS. I do think these are extraordinarily personal decisions, and for most of us, with lifelong impacts no matter what we decide. But I do believe they are decisions for us to make, hopefully with as many options and as much support as possible.
This is a situation where I really struggle not to judge. Like you, I can imagine a number of scenarios where the choice to terminate a pregnancy is appropriate. This is not one of them. Abortion as birth control makes my skin crawl. But, as you say, there could be much about her circumstances that she chose not to disclose – things that might help me see her in a different light. But then I am left to wonder, “So why drop the bomb – why tell the one thing that will make people rush to judgment and raise all sorts of curiosities – and then not fill in any of the blanks?”
And better yet, why not carry the baby and let someone adopt it? The worst thing about being pro-choice is that you have no influence over how people make that choice. I believe that women are entitled to that choice. It just breaks my heart how some choose to exercise it.
I also don’t believe in abortion as birth control, but I have to believe that something else was going on (believe, because I want to? believe, because we never really know what is going on in someone’s life?) – and yet looking back from where I sit now, I can’t say that I understand why she would tell me the fact of something without any context. And somehow, I think it must be a harder choice when you’re already a mother – when you know what it is to adore a child, to feel the child part of you forever. Perhaps there was a need in her to tell someone who wouldn’t and really couldn’t judge. Perhaps with the years I’ve forgotten something. So many questions, and only she has the answers.
And this story, profound and sad, serves to illustrate that we really don’t know anyone unless we’ve walked a mile in their shoes. It’s also keenly illustrative that outward appearances are not, necessarily, what we would assume. This is important stuff! Thank you for sharing.
As you say Christine, we really don’t know. Appearances can be very deceiving. All the more reason not to judge the decisions of others.
Perhaps your memory of this echoes her experience as well—something that, like much in our experience, has more questions than answers, but which nonetheless is never quite forgotten. It read to me like a Harold Pinteresque moment laced with anguish and wrapped in defenses while pierced from within by wishes to be known, even in our pain, maybe particularly in the flavor of certain pain. Perhaps what you continue to carry is the strange yet compelling sense that even things that are terminated, or not “actually” existing anymore, still do exist, and bond, and haunt, and provoke… in their own mysterious ways. My experience in knowing many women intimately as a therapist is that one can fully support the right to abortion and still be deeply affected by it—by a sometimes scary and painful procedure, by the general aloneness of it, by the wondering about what might have been, about who might have been.
Ouch. I don’t know why but I so often hesitate to say it; I am pro-life. I come from a liberal family and am midway between liberal and conservative myself–and I hate that it has become a liberal-conservative issue. But in my family I’m the odd one out. So I’m quiet. And I live in a blue state; so unless I am with people I feel confident will at least understand (like Church) even if they are not pro-life, I’m quiet.
Several years ago my Grandma and I were talking. She said she is pro-choice and then she listed why.
She feels that if there is a threat to a woman’s life in carrying, she should have the right to choose… but she then listed the circumstances she felt it should not be allowed. Not as birth control, not because you found out it was a boy and wanted a girl, not because it was unplanned…a bunch of nots. Basically I learned we believe the exact same thing and yet label it differently.
We adopted our son, and I speak from that perspective. I am pro-choice, but not as glibly as I once was. Abortion as birth control is wrong. There are too many couples who can’t have biological children of their own. I wish every woman bearing an unwanted child were required, before obtaining an abortion, to meet one such couple.
I am always surprised at what people choose to reveal, especially to those they don’t know very well. This story has me intrigued, wondering what drove her to tell her secret to you. It also has me thinking how a few words can carry such an impact and how it leaves more questions than answers.