That I loved You.

Holding this child in my arms broke my heart. The sideways smile and big blue eyes that went on forever. The future I could see for him, the future that has already gripped his generation. In the warmth of my mother house with carrots and potatoes, I am raked by grief looking into those eyes. I fear for my mothers influence on him. I fear for the influence of his drunken grandfather. I fear for the influence of the methamphetamines his mother took while she was pregnant.

I look into those eyes and I can feel only despair.

I tried not to think about the seizures that would contort that innocent face. I tried not to think about the massive central nervous system damage he had suffered as a result of his mothers sins. I have been trying not to think about it. I have been trying not to think about it. I have been trying not to think about it.

and I can feel only despair.

I think of how indifferent I am to the suffering of those around me. I think how I would not care if he was in his thirties and had done it to himself. I think about all the idle bondage he will suffer at the hands of his peers, for being slower, for being different. I think of the road that he walks into this future.

only despair.

How do I feel about abortion. Adoption. The lives we leave behind us, so that we may sleep at night. Would his life have been better for him if he had never come to be. Is his suffering reason enough to live, or die? His cards had been dealt for him before he was born, short changed from day one, but I cannot ask for his life to be renounced. I could not leave him behind.

despair.

uehen

and for the four-year-old girl found dead in a dumpster
shot by her mother, her eulogy,
the sound of construction through head-to-head traffic
today is just another day.