An hour of 40 DAYS! Remembering my sidewalk experience in 1981!

So the event that is going on now is 40 days for life. Today my friend Beth and I met our other friend Pam at a clinic in Raleigh. It was a slow day. I find most abortions end up being later in the week so the women can recover and be back to work after the weekend. Still, it is really a humbling experience to stand in front of a clinic while women are inside aborting their babies. We saw only one woman who arrived in a car with a man and a pit bull. They drove in seemingly very self assured. The woman couldn't get in the door and asked if it was open. I asked if she had an appointment. She said she was there for an ultrasound. It took a second but I then told her there was a place down the street for a free ultrasound. She said to Pam that it could save her 100 dollars. Still she tried the door again. I called down the street to the crisis pregnancy center which I had added to my speed dial. They had someone there to perform an ultra sound but she ended up getting into the clinic. We could feel the oppression and Beth and I could also physically smell a demonic stench even though we were on opposite sides of the building. It sort of would waft our way. I thought it could be some foul smell left there but it was weird and intermittent.

Here is an excerpt from my book (being edited) called TO BE A MOTHER...about my walk into the clinic :


It was hot in Orlando. It was May. My boyfriend dropped me off at the front door. The clinic faced a really busy street and the door that you had to enter in was in the back of the building. I was 19, confused and desperate to keep my job. My boyfriend was the only one who knew I was pregnant. I was about 8 or 9 weeks pregnant. I had Mondays off from my singing and dancing job at the famous theme park near by. I would have to sing again on Friday after calling in sick for 3 days. At least I would still be able to support myself with my job once the abortion was over. I didn’t like the idea of heading back to Rockford as a pregnant teen. So John dropped me off by the front door not knowing I had to walk around to the back entrance. I had to talk him into coming back later to pick me up. It was 1981. I didn’t have a cell phone and had to just guess what time would work for him to pick me up. He said he’d be back in the front in a few hours. It was his day off too and he had things to do.

There was a sidewalk on the side of the building and one in the back of the building by the parking lot. The sidewalk looked similar to the one on 15th Street in Rockford. My head was down. I walked slowly. I wanted to turn around but there was no car for me to get into and I was far from home. The clinic staff made me prepay and I thought weirdly too that meant I shouldn’t waste my money and had to go through with the abortion. There were palm trees instead of oak trees and sand in the cracks on the sidewalk. I saw a lizard skitter by. I saw a few palmetto bugs and watched as a wayward seagull picked at the crumbs on the sidewalk. A car whizzed by playing loud Foreigner music “I Wanna Know What Love Is.” The walk from the front of the building to the back door was the hardest walk I have ever had to take. My legs felt like giant tree trunks rooted to a place that I wanted to stay stuck in. I didn’t want to move and had to force each step. There was a thumping in my head and I could feel sweat down my back from the morning sickness, heat, reluctance and dread. I was nauseas and dizzy. “Step on a crack, break your mothers back.” The childhood rhyme was there as I glared down at the pavement with my blurry eyes. “Someone please save me!” cried out from my soul. No one was there. The Foreigner car had passed and I saw no one else on the side of the building. I knew about the people who would come and hold the signs of aborted babies. I hated them and wished there were people who really cared about me and really wanted to help rather than protest. But I became oddly angrier when I didn’t see them there. I knew that my opinion of them was valid. “See? They couldn’t even bother with showing up today on the one day that I could have used a naysayer.” Even though I didn’t like them I longed to be whisked away, taken away from my delirious choice and released nine months later with a baby on my chest. I also simultaneously didn’t want any interaction with them at all. My blue Jelly sandals imprisoned my bare feet as they brushed the ground over the cracks and around the corner. I looked both ways wondering where they were. Where were the protesters? They were nowhere to be found. I was totally alone now pacing over cracks ruminating in my decision. Then I heard a ringing from the bells hanging on the inside of the clinic door and a “Coming in?” A man in a white medical jacket had opened the door of the clinic and was gallantly waving me in. I looked up from the cracks and walked in.

Walking out 3 hours later was another thing altogether. A hand grabbed the knob. It was mine. The ringing commenced as the bells banged against the glass while the door opened. I squinted as the sun blasted into the glazed and teary eyes. It was surreal. The legs were no longer rooted like tree trunks. There was no spine. My back felt broken just a ripped up shell unable able to contain the vital parts of itself. The knees were wobbly. I was disconnected from my body, shivering and feeling as if I could have been pushed over by a light Florida breeze. My legs somehow took me down the sidewalk. I was watching myself from afar. I felt as if I belonged somewhere else. I felt as if I didn’t want to be connected or thrust back into that body and reality. I didn’t want to fall back into the body that was now incomplete without the life that had been growing inside of it for 8 weeks. I walked out alone again with no one there to help me creep the sidewalk. It started to rain one of those Florida rainbow rains. The sun was shining, a brief cloud, warm rain but I couldn’t lift my head and didn’t care if I saw a rainbow. I felt the rain and was chilled by it. It was 85 degrees outside. I waited thinking it was odd that they wanted us to bring our own socks to wear while we had an abortion in case our feet became cold. Eventually John showed up, got out of the car, opened the door for me and helped me in. He never did step foot on the sidewalk.