Next post
A quote: “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” ~~ Nelson Mandela
I’ll start with a story, prompted not only by the image but by this.
*********************************
She smiled at her son, and as she reached up to hug him she thought of the happy infant he had been. His fall off his first two-wheeler, the broken arm, scribbled birthday cards to her, and Little League trophies, his face as he saw his bride approach and the excitement in his voice when he told her of his first child. He looked down at her, smiling, guessing her thoughts.
A hand was patting her awake, the machine was turned off, someone hustling out of the room carrying a silvered basin.
“All done. Thank you for choosing Planned Parenthood.”
********************************
Now, it’s your turn.
.
.
.
.
.
. featured image, cropped, Adobe Stock standard license.
Cameron says: Fluffy had landed on the window and looked as if it was keeping an eye outside as I drove my daughter to the hospital. For six horrifying weeks, she endured the treatments even though it broke her heart that Fluffy was not allowed to see her.
It was raining heavily all day and the stuffed sentinel still looked down at the driveway. But I will swear to my dying day that it started dancing when he saw her coming out of the car and walking into the house. He fell into her arms and I knew she would get better.
My son’s outgrown the little plushie his grandma gave him, so it now sits in my office window, a constant reminder that I have a dog in this fight.
When the third round of infertility treatments failed, Tom and I decided to adopt. Back then, everyone was still in agreement that, while the Cold War cloning and biotechnology experiments were immoral, the children created by them were innocent victims, not co-culprits with the scientists. So it made perfect sense to adopt one of NASA’s clones of Alan Shepard, bring him home to New Hampshire.
By the time Chandler was in grade school, the climate of opinion was beginning to shift. Nothing formal yet, just little things like declined play dates, parties to which he wasn’t invited.
When the children’s librarian publicly humiliated him for his genetic origins, two days after Admiral Shepard’s passing was publicly announced, I complained and got blown off by the library director. That was when I started my political career, running for the library board in hopes of getting rid of that man.
I butted heads with a lot of people over the next several years, in the library board, the school board, the town council. Tom worried sometimes that my political activity could make trouble for his career at UNH, but the Department of Mathematics granted him tenure without trouble.
By the time Chandler was hitting high school, I could see that things were going from bad to worse, from casual discrimination to legal restrictions. That’s when I decided to reach beyond Durham’s bounds.
Yet there’s only so much even a state governor can do when the Administration is determined to beat the drum of moral panic against clones and other persons touched by genetic engineering. I’m working closely with Governor Thorne of California, who is by training a lawyer, and senior officials of several other states. But every time we block one encroachment, Flannigan and his cronies come up with a dozen new ones.
Dupin says: Did he still guard?
She turned her head to see him there, standing on the window sill, standing vigil as always. So loyal on this trip too. He guarded her against the lightning and thunder, the rain and the darkness. He would be on her final voyage. It was near, she knew, so near. The beeps and blips were fading to her ears.
She closed her eyes, his silhouette emblazoned there.
He was with her now. She could go.
She let out a last breath and was gone, not hearing the steady beep that echoed in the now-empty room.
Navig8r says: We bears regard pink as not a good color for bears to be. However, after all these years of overwhelming love, I wouldn’t change it. It would be fun to be outside playing with her, but that would mean getting wet and muddy, which would be followed by a trip through the gentle cycles of the washer and dryer. For those who haven’t experienced it, “gentle” is a relative term. I might wish it on my worst enemies if I had any, but like wet and muddy, some problems are better to not have. She’ll be back in soon. Sigh . . .
4 Comments