reaching for you after my abortion
by Victoria Silverio |
|
Victoria is an Educational Consultant and volunteers at the Westside Pregnancy Clinic, LA (www.wpclinic.org). Her passions include writing, painting, snowboarding, hiking, picnics, and long afternoons sharing insights with her friends over coffee. Victoria has begun a Post-Abortion Recovery Program called “Still Waters” (contact her at mosaic_stillwaters@yahoo.com). She and her husband have been West-siders for two years. | |  |
-------------------------
The following are resurrected writings to God after an abortion many many years ago. They express my battle in finding peace, questioning myself, and believing that I deserve to be forgiven and happy after such a tragic event.
-----------
Dear God,
I wanted to write You something new. I want to be new … Though I distract myself and my fingers are cold and paralyzed, like the twigs at the end of branches laced in ice, waiting for the sun to melt away the quiet, stiff, and strict. There seems to be no comfort lately and everything is irritating. Why? I feel a constant rash race across the landscape of my skin — feel as if I am breathing in cotton — like a glaze of jam is spread over my eyes. A bitten lip. Hair cobwebbed about my face, and a haze within my mind.
Why is there distance? I listen for you. I race, running backwards on tip-toes in the traffic of a sweltering ocean. This may be too depressing — sorry, God. I have writer’s block this year.
-----------
Dear God,
Today I am a ship. In a glacier. Of time. The mountains behind. The beach in front. You above. My face ... below.
-----------
Dear God,
Today is like yesterday and I hate it. I hate the perplexed and exquisite brows that stare back at the reflection of, who? I’m not quit sure. Blood and sweat are familiar but sugar and kisses are foreign and forever proving a pain in my heart. I can’t hear You, my Love, and the maybes of tomorrow are anything but the promises I long for. Now engaging moments that predict will before a way and goodbyes before hellos.
My dreams are what I want to think of as real and thoughts can be left on pillows and on paper and in prayers …
-----------
Dear God,
I do believe I was once a widow and still feel the hole that is the home in which my child once lived.
-----------
Dear God,
Inside there is a place that calls my child “precious”; a place that spans across what is now and what was and what will never be. Inside tries to crawl its way out but the whispers are fought with interrogations and consequence. I pray for a lullaby. A butterfly kiss. I pray for inspiration. A tall sky, a deep sea, and a wide smile. Forgiveness.
-----------
Dear God,
The mystery of life You still keep, and chasing you never grows old. Free will. It is free. Take it. Like the kite at the end of the string, I pull you nearer to me. Now I just will try and listen … for your still quiet voice.
-----------
Dear God,
I heard you today. You whisper to me now, and shadows fall, thoughts evaporate like snowflakes, and I am left. In your arms I melt. Thank you. Thank you for writing me a story, telling me the truth, forgiving me, promising me love, and reminding me that it will not always be easy, but it will always be momentous ...
Love,
Your Daughter, Victoria
|
locations