Not Getting To Hold Him, Not Even Once
Jane sat in the front row of a room crowded full of people. Beside her sitting
was her daughter in law Jill and her daughter little Jane. Her son insisted that
little Jane be named after his mother. He loved his mother so much, and
always had. Jane sat there thinking about her son as a little boy. Things like
how he used to go out in the yard and pick her flowers and bring them in and
give her. The flowers were only dandelions, but they might as well have been
a dozen roses to her. He gave her the flowers with love.
He would sit in front of the T.V. with his little puppy, that my dad had gotten
him for Christmas. He named the puppy Scooby Doo and he talked to the
puppy and pretended the pup could talk back like the one he was named after
on T.V. Him and that pup, the things they did get into.
My dad spoiled that boy rotten, he was his pride and joy, mine too. My
father and I never got along before George was born. We couldn’t see eye to
eye on anything and practically hated each other. All that changed when
George came along. If you could have seen the joy in my dad’s eyes, when
George rode his bicycle for the first time. I wish my dad could have been
here today, but he died six years ago when George was thirteen.
I tried to get George to not join the service, and to go to college instead.
George said Mom, I love you , but this is what God is leading me to do. I
couldn’t argue with that, because that’s what his Grandfather and I had
always told him to do. I couldn’t see why God would want him to join the
service, with the Gulf war getting ready to start, because he did I’m sitting
here today. George looks so nice there in his uniform.
I don’t understand exactly what happened, something about a SCUD missile.
My son was on duty when the SCUD came, there was a lot of talk about
missals and my son and the hospital. I saw the explosion on the T.V. news.
I didn’t know my son was there. Jill is sitting here now with tears running
down her face. I can’t see very well or far away because of my diabetes. My
legs have already been amputated below the knees. Two service men came
out to the limousine that was sent for the family, and the nice boys carried me
in. They had an honor guard walk Jill and little Jane in too. The only three
empty chair in the whole place were the one’s reserved for us.
When George was ready to get on the plane to go over seas, I just had to tell
him. I couldn’t keep it bottled up inside me anymore. It had bothered me all
these years and I didn’t know just how to break it to him. I had nightmare
after nightmare about it before George was born. I still do from time to time.
I guess with a thing like that, it’s only natural to have nightmares about it.
I talked to a preacher about it before George was born, he said There is no sin
you can’t be forgiven for except for not believing. I have God’s forgiveness.
I thought George should know. I said George there is something I have to tell
you before you go, it’s about you. He said What is it mom? I said Son when
I found out I was pregnant, I was going to have an abortion, I had already
paid the money. I took all of my savings, sold what I could, borrowed from
everyone I could to have the money for it.
By mistake I went in the back door of the clinic instead of the front door.
There in a room was seven women covered in blood and crying, they had just
came out of the abortion room. They had them sit in there to see if they were
going to stop bleeding, and so the ones wainting wouldn’t see what they were
in for.
They stopped crying long enough to plead with me to PLEASE do not go
through with it. They told me what took place step by step. The pain and
how they strapped you down on the table, and the nurse had to hold you too,
because of the pain. The cruelness of the Doctor saying Stop screaming, it
can’t hurt that bad. It does hurt that bad, worse than child birth had ever
been. You couldn’t scream loud enough to match the pain that you were
going through. The worse part is the glass container sitting there in plain
sight, attached to a suction machine. It’s like using a high powered vacuum
cleaner on you that doesn’t care what parts it sucks out of you. You can see
in the glass container, all of the blood and the little body parts of what was
your little baby.
I think it was God that lead me to that back door. It was the Devil trying to
get me to go in the front door, hiding the truth about what was going to
happen to me there. If God is leading you to go, then trust he has a mission
for you. George said I know mom. Grandpa told me all about the other also,
along time before he died. I love you mom. My son knew it all along and he
still loved me for being his mom.
Its time for the ceremony to start. The President came out and told how my
son fired a missile to stop a missile in Israel, that it would have hit a hospital
full of children. He stood up there with my son standing beside of him, and is
just talking on and on. He had better hurry up and pin that medal on my son.
I’m not going to wait much longer. He has been out of my arms too long. I
cry everytime I think of how close I came to, not getting to hold him, not even
once.
Written by : Johnny lee Hall
