God loves the church. And me, I love the church too. But how many people have lost their minds and their lives over the church’s wishes and it’s condemnation of people for just being human?
I knew a woman who was human. But that woman was also abused. My great aunt recalled the story of how that woman had taken a coat hanger and jabbed herself, up into her vagina, her uterus, over and over, to abort the child of the man who abused her.
She would have been happy to die. For many years she did, in her heart of hearts. I imagine she never recovered. Of course she lost her reproductive parts. But condemn her for what she did in this state of panic in the 1950s? Really?
Not my G-d. Never in a million light years would the G-d I know condemn her.
Her abuser also came to cry his heart out before he died. I knew them both.
But dear Alice. As we searched for her and then researched her life, the story of a woman with a breakdown came to light. Throughout her life, those who knew her did not know for sure why she had had a breakdown. This or that was thought, but in my searching for the mother, Alice, of a motherless baby, I could guess why Alice had had a breakdown. She missed that baby whom I was helping to look for her mother.
But what if the view of this thing called humanity and its resulting pregnancies and other issues was viewed differently? Would she have had a breakdown? Or would she have merrily gone along with multiple children from different daddies? But sadly, are those mothers able to take those babies to churches – any of them? That is a G-d awful shame.
I read some folks’ views today, and I think of the lives ruined over love or fear. Our bodies are made to react with passion – this makes the world go round. Certainly there needs to be civility, but to see the lives of people in the records showing death and suicide and breakdowns because of one human frailty or another is so very sad. And in fear, being targeted because you are female, being preyed upon, you have to get away from that. Then it will be your fault and you might wish yourself dead.
Searching for ancestors, and the ancestors of others, we can almost feel their pains and joys as stories of their lives come to light. Whether a great aunt or great uncle, or parent, or aunt or uncle, there are family stories. Get them all before they are gone. These are sad ones but don’t forget them either; they are as much a part of life as the happy days and stories. They are also important for life lessons.
I talked to my friend one last time before she died. I did not say that I knew about her terrible time in the 1950s, and she did not discuss the children of the past as such. But she was tearful over a sense of loss, and spoke of regret for what might have been. She wanted to know, and hoped no one was angry with her, or disappointed in her. My heart broke for her.
I was glad to get to tell her how much she was loved just as she was. And she was perfect in my heart, just as she was.
I still believe with all my heart that the angels gathered round her, weeping and praying for help, as my friend was in hysterics and panic during that 1950s self-mutilation.
We did not get to tell Alice anything; she had long passed when we found her. That is the saddest thing to me. Alice went quite young to a nursing facility and spent the last decades of her life there. If my guess is right about the cause of her nervous collapse, she longed to see the baby, the one who longed to see her.
DNA from a close relative proved the identity of that baby, born in the 1920s.
Who has an earthly right to say a word?
Out of wedlock? Condemned? Raped by a stranger? Raped and abused by a husband or family? Babies given up, lost, died?
Who has an earthly right to say a word?
Marionetta Strung-Out 