This poem is written out of sorrow for the one who died of an abortion, pressured by the child’s father, in the hope that God will look to her earthly sufferings and be merciful to her in eternity, and that our hearts may soften so that we will no longer remain indifferent by the killing of an unborn child and the forcing of its mother to consent to it. Often the very father of the child, who is called upon to be the guardian of mother and child, is responsible for such unparalleled wickedness.

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You will not hold your child’s hand

anonymous author

You will not hold your child’s hand,
Because you loved that whom was not worthy of you both.

You will not know the pain of childbirth,
will not hold your child against your chest,
will not nurse him,
will not lull him,
will not sing him lullabies to fall asleep,
will not guard him in his sleep.

You will not have him given to you from the water of the Baptism
will not hold him in your arms as the priest gives him the Body and Blood of Christ,
will not teach him how to pray,
will no longer kneel for him before the icon of the Mother of God,
As you have done so many times when both of you were in this world.

You will not watch over your sick child at night
will not go with him to the hospital,
will not pray that all his suffering be given to you
nor will you thank the Virgin Mary for making him well.
You will not see your child grow up,
will not know what his first day of school would have been like
and will not see him graduate,
will not teach him to be good,
and diligent, and brave, and loving,
even though you wanted to be the best mother,
and you promised this to your last child.

To your child,
You will not heal his wounds with your own hand, when he be fallen,
and will not ease his pain with your tear, when he be hurt by others.
You won’t have your heart broken when he lied to you
nor will you rejoice when he had asked your forgiveness for a mistake – though you would
have borne them all
with all your heart.

You won’t see your child drawing in the sand on the seashore,
a heart – and in it writing your name and his,
as you drew a heart in the sand on the seashore,
as you wrote your name and a man’s name in it,
believing you’re living a life-giving love.
Here, you will not be called “my wife” by anyone,
nor will you call someone “my husband”.

You won’t be lifting your child in your arms when you reached the
mountain tops
to see beyond the edges of this world,
for this world has deceived you.

You said your greatest gift is your child,
but when your child would have turned 18,
you would not give him a gift
because you
the day you turned 18,
received the lying gift of having your body sold for others to buy, being told this is
what you must do to be loved by those who sold you out.

You won’t hear the words
mother, mom, mommy

and no one will talk to you about “your son” or “your daughter”
to rejoice or be ashamed
here, in this earthly life.

Your child won’t know when he grows up how hard you fought for him,
you won’t tell him how much pressure you endured to abort him:
he already found out, there, in God’s hands, when you yielded to the pressures
and weeping, crying, sobbing, you listened to them
whom you shouldn’t have listened to
those who promised you so much,
those who deceived you,
those who used you,
those who have robbed you both of the gift of life in this world.

You will not grow old to become more beautiful,
you will not wrinkle with the joy that the fruit of your womb blooms,
you will not want to be even older,
to see your grandchildren sooner,
even though you would have gladly done all this
though you’ve waited for them since you were little
with the natural longing of a woman
heightened by longing for the mother you lost before you knew her.

Your child will never hold your hand
and will not kiss it
on your last earthly journey
and will never remember you with all the departed of your generation
and will not speak your name to his children and his children’s children.

Your last child –
the child-hope,
the child for whom you chose two names – the name of God, who loved him and created him,
and the name of his earthly father, who hated him,
the child you caressed,
to whom you sang,
that whom you’ve shown to others in ultrasounds,
that whom you prayed for,
the child you aborted
and to whom you’ve only survived one day in this earthly life.
For you, too, died of abortion.

And now here you are, mother and child, before God.
Here are they that are left behind, those who seek to wash away your blood
and your souls:
The man you idolatrously loved and who asked you to bequeath your child for his false love,
and the doctor by whose hand the killing of the infant was committed and the loss of your life began.

Here are the men
who only used you for their own pleasure,
and then rejected you
and called you by a shameful word, not knowing your being.
Here we are, all the rest of us, who didn’t know, didn’t want, didn’t dare, couldn’t love you enough to help you and your child
to live,
to give birth to him,
to hear his first whimper,
to smile to him,
to mark him with the sign of the cross,
hear him say mother,
to celebrate him every year on every anniversary,
teach him,
reprimand him,
forgive him,
bless him,
thank him that you are mother through him,
love him infinitely, as you told him until death cast its darkness over the light of your love
– the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, the cunning killer instead of life-giving love.

May God forgive you, Andreea Nicoleta, of all your transgressions both voluntary and involuntary,
by deed, of word and of thought, of knowledge and of ignorance
and have mercy upon you
and upon all your unborn children.

We ask Him to forgive those of us who,
by our unloving lives,
devoid of faith as a mustard seed,
have been part of the torment of an abused woman from childhood
to the last hour of her life.

You will never hold your children’s hands
in this world,
but you all are
into the hands of the one good Father whose Son gave Himself for our sins and whose Spirit is life-giving.

In Him we trust.