I celebrate a birthday every year that no one knows about, except maybe the person’s whose birthday it was to be and God or Buddha or whoever you follow in your religious circles.  He or she would be forty years old now, probably married and have kids of their own maybe, I don’t know. 

I think about this person every day and what an impact on this world that they could have made if only they had been given the chance to shine and be loved and live.

I never set eyes on this person yet I am curious about them;  their eye color, long slender fingers or possibly short and stubby like mine, blonde head or glorious black hair and a pale complexion that would render people speechless. 

Would they have been smart, one of those kids that didn’t need books seemed to come by it natural and could add figures in their head.  Would he or she love to read, their imagination taking them away to magical places. 

Favorite foods, would he or she like sweets, or veggies?  Love to eat out or love to cook?  I wonder would he or she have been messy or neat to a fault.  It’s hard for me to imagine him or her at the age of forty, I can only see in my mind as I did then when I was but a child. 

What I saw then and still to this day is an infant lying in a cradle with only a diaper on.  No blanket, no cover or padding to make it comfortable and the baby is cold and alone, it’s little arms constantly reaching in the air for someone or something to hold and comfort it.  And although I can hear it, and see it in my mind, I cannot change it.  I put that baby there and left it, and I walked away, and that baby is now mine to carry forever.   It is forever crying in my mind and heart and all it wants is a chance a simple chance to be loved, to be held and given a chance to live as we all have been so fortunate to be able to do.   

I fought to keep my baby as hard and as long as I could, and I can blame everyone else and my family for talking me into getting an abortion, for wearing me down, for the constant lectures where one sibling would switch off with another and I could not leave the room, until I finally broke down and agreed so they would give me some rest, so I could go to the bathroom, so I could sleep.  Ironic isn’t it, I don’t rest even this day.

I did make that decision at a young age of fourteen and it is mine and mine alone to bear.   I remember my brother running from the room and yelling to my mother that he had done it, he had convinced me to have an abortion, he was so proud. 

I walked in to clinic without any family support, was lectured and told to sign papers I didn’t understand. I didn’t have a bag change of clothes nothing.  My mother simply told me to come back to the car when they were done.  So two children walked into that clinic and one walked out alone, suddenly wiser and much older than when she had gone in. I had to borrow a kotex from the lady beside me to stanch the flow of blood from the procedure.  She threw one under the stall muttering under her breathe about how could I be in there alone with nothing.  It just added to my shame, my disgust, and my hatred for what I had just done to an innocent soul. 

If I had known this would follow me for over forty years.  If I had known how many nights I would have cried for that child.  If I had known what I missed and what I had done to that poor soul, I would have hung on for dear life and screamed NO until I had no breath, or until I was dead and the child and I passed together.  If I had known, I would have a child forty years old today instead of forty years dead.  If I had only known.

Thank you for allowing me to express some of my pain...