the tray down. She even unwrapped my plastic fork and knife for me. Naturally I only got a flimsy plastic knife and fork with my food, since they couldn't let me have any metal.
I felt defeated. All that work last night, and the whole forgiveness thing just crashed down around my ears. I thought I'd forgiven myself! Why was I suddenly feeling the same old self-loathing that I usually felt? Was I such a loser that I couldn't even forgive right?
Then the dratted Bible got to me again. When Peter asked Jesus how often he should forgive and if seven times was enough, Jesus answered, "I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven." That was 490 times for Pete's sake!
"Here I go again," I moaned, making the poor nurse look at me in pity as she left. I shoved my food tray aside and stood up so I could go and start the head bashing again. But before I reached the wall I tried saying, "I forgive me" as I had done last night. And although I really didn't mean it, I realized to my surprise, that I was not nearly as resistant to the idea as I used to be. Somehow I had broken the barrier last night in my first, and unquestionably worst, self-forgiveness session. And while it wasn't easy and my breakfast was long cold before I could finally say "I forgive myself" and truly mean it, I was thankfully able to gain back the hard won ground from the night before. I had to fight for it, but self-forgiveness finally came.
That was the start of a new life for me. For the first time since before I found out I was pregnant, I had hope. Hope is a precious thing, I realized. We can hardly live without it. If our lives are hopeless for too long, we start to slip into total despair and we lose our capacity to live. Sort of like Mom. Somehow she had lost all her hope.
But mine had returned. Because of Jesus it had returned. And even though I had to struggle many times a day to forgive myself--almost every time I even thought about Jonathon and the abortion in fact--I was now able to forgive myself and start a new life. During those dark days after the abortion I had never thought I could reach such a point. But because of the Bible and Jesus and the incredible power of forgiveness, I did.
Days passed into weeks, and weeks into months. I was in that stinking place for almost three months. Dad came to see me every day of course. He didn't look too good some days. The double stress of caring for Mom and me trying to kill myself was almost too much for him. But after my forgiveness episode I started to improve and things got better. That helped Dad a lot. I started to be more positive and encouraging. I even laughed occasionally. It did my heart good to see him go away with a smile when he had come in with a haggard frown.
They were slow about letting me go. Apparently they were worried I might be putting on a show of improvement just so I could go drown myself in the river the minute I got out. But as the weeks passed and they saw that I consistently had a better attitude and was no longer anxious for a quick exit from the world, they finally got the message. They put me through a huge battery of psychological tests of course, just to make sure I was truly ready to re-enter the harsh world of reality. But I knew I was, and in time they came to see it to. And so finally in early October, they released me.
Dad was ecstatic while he drove me home, feeling tremendously relieved that one of his two burdens seem to have been lifted. "Kate, I can't tell you how good it is to see you out of that place. It's wonderful you're coming home."
I smiled at him weakly. It was strange, but I suddenly realized I didn't fully share his enthusiasm. I never thought I'd miss that awful suicide house, but being out after having been in such a protected environment felt a bit scary. "Yeah, it is good," I said in as firm a voice as I could muster. Then just to change the subject I asked, "So how's Oscar?"
My Dad's face clouded over. "Uh ... Oscar ..." he repeated dumbly. He didn't need to say anything more.
"How long ago did he run away?" I asked quietly. Somehow the thought of not seeing his furry face when we got home was very depressing.
"Oh, awhile," he said vaguely.
"That long?" I said sadly. "Was it like the other time? Did he go trying to find me right after I disappeared?"
Dad nodded. "But he came back," he added hastily. "He left and came back several times."
"He expected me to be there when he came, I guess."
Dad nodded again. "I'm sure he'll come home again soon," he said with a forced smile. I almost asked how long it had been since the last time he came back, but then thought better of it. It was probably best that I didn't know.
"And how's Mom?" I asked, trying to change the subject again. Unfortunately, this wasn't a good subject to switch to. Dad's face clouded over once more.
"About the same," he answered vaguely. Then he reached over and gave me a reassuring pat on the arm. "But I'm sure she'll be much better when she sees you home again."
There was silence in the car for a few moments as we continued on our way home. Finally I brought up a plan that had been in my mind for quite awhile now. "I'm going to do a little research and find an anti-abortion demonstration group. I intend to join them and do all I can in the effort." There was a firm resolution in my voice. This was something I knew I HAD to do, for Jonathon and for me.
My Dad didn't know what to say to that. "That sounds good," he said at last. "But don't forget the GED. You need a high school diploma so you can move on with life, you know."
I knew that, but felt a bit overwhelmed and depressed by it too. I had missed graduation by just one semester because of the abortion. That blasted abortion had ruined about everything it could in my life.
We pulled into the driveway, and I found myself looking up at our house once more. It was the house I'd grown up in and which had been a constant refuge my whole life. It looked so familiar, yet at the same time sort of strange as if I didn't really belong here anymore.
The house wasn't different--I was. I had changed while it had stayed the same. And because of that, in some ways I had moved on. "I'm not returning to the way things were," I said firmly to myself in my mind. "I'm not going back. I can't. This is a new beginning, but in an old place."
Dad wasn't quite right when he said Mom was "about the same." She looked worse. When I first saw her, it scared me. Her face looked white and pinched and drained of blood, and her hands lay limply on the sheets. Her eyes had shrunken into her skull, and stared vacantly into the air in front of her.
"Look who's home, Carol," said Dad with forced cheerfulness. "It's Kate!"
Mom slowly looked at us, her eyes cloudy. "Kate?" she repeated stupidly. "But I killed Kate. She's not here."
"That's not true, Mom," I said firmly, stepping over and taking her hand. It felt like a cold, dead fish. "I'm right here."
She just stared at me without seeing. "Kate's gone," she said at last. "Gone forever because of what I did. She's gone."
I suddenly had a wild urge to shake her shoulders and yell in her face. I KNEW Mom was in the there somewhere, waiting to be pulled out. Why couldn't we reach her?
"I'm not gone, Mom," I repeated firmly. "I'm right here. I've come to take care of you, like you used to take care of me when I was a little girl." She continued to stare at me with unseeing eyes. And she didn't say anything for the rest of the evening.
May 23
True to my word, I found an anti-abortion group right away and called them up. I spoke to their head dude, a guy named Mack. He told me to come down the next day, since they were organizing a rally in front of an abortion clinic in a suburb outside Pittsburgh. That mean it would not be at the clinic where I'd had my abortion.
But the address he gave me to meet at was almost in downtown Pittsburgh. I had to take a bus to get there since dad was at work and my car was still out of commission. Besides, I'd lost my license to drive because of my suicide attempts.
After I went into the suicide center, Dad had hired a part time nurse to take care of mom while he was at work. I have no idea how he afforded it. It was handy no
w though, since I knew I'd go crazy if I had to sit in that house all day, with mom just staring vacantly into space. I felt guilty but grateful as I left mom with the nurse that day and took the bus from Cranberry down to the Burgh.
It was a long bus ride. It reminded me of that other bus ride I'd taken, the day after spending the night at Clarice's house. On that occasion, what mom had said about stopping Jonathon's heartbeat had filled my mind the whole journey, and I'd had to fight to keep it out. The familiarity of now being on the bus again threatened to do the same thing to me once more. I sighed deeply and frowned as I realized I had to once again forgive myself, since these memories had stirred up the old, familiar self-loathing I knew only too well.
When I got to the address Mack gave me it turned out to be a deserted video rental store, from the days before Redbox. There were lots of people milling around as I entered, young and old. There were also signs and posters all over with anti-abortion slogans on them. It gave me both a sense of discomfort and joy to know I was joining this group, to fight hated abortions. The discomfort of course was since I had had an abortion myself. But I had continued my Bible reading, so in a way I saw myself like the Apostle Paul who used to try and murder Christians before he became one.
Mack turned out to be an old fellow who