Once I started this website I knew that one day I would have to write this article, but I never knew exactly what to say, really. While I always knew what the question was quite precisely, I didn’t, yet, know the answer. Then it occurred to me while I was spending Father’s Day with my daughters.
What does it feel like being a post-abortive man? It feels like spending the most wonderful day with your three amazing daughters year after year after year, yet knowing in your heart that some of your children are missing, and will always be missing. It’s taking a picture of daughters and knowing it’s incomplete, and will always be incomplete. Missing and incomplete . . .
The first woman that told me she aborted my child was a woman I was engaged to marry, and it nearly cost her her life, I was so angry. She said she did it because she didn’t think I would be there for her. The next three women aborted my children because I was married. I drove them all to the abortion-mill and paid for the murders of my own children. I did everything I could to convince the second one that she didn’t have to do it; the first one I said nothing supportive to because I didn’t actually believe it was mine, and the last one, I tried talking her out of it before we walked into the facility.
I was an Agnostic leaning Deist. I don’t remember for sure why I believed abortion was wrong, but I had definitely bought into the lie that it was a woman’s choice to do what she wanted to with her body. I didn’t distinguish the difference between her body and my unborn child’s body back then, and it wouldn’t until I started reading Catholic theology some years later. All knew back then was that by driving the women there and paying for the procedure, I was taking responsibility for being irresponsible. That’s how I justified it, but that pretentious assuaging of the conscience could never take away the pain of knowing what was missing and incomplete in my life.
Becoming Catholic was cathartic for me in this regard, because the teachings of the Church on human dignity finally resolved what I sensed was wrong about abortion with why it actually is wrong. This new understanding also helped me heal as much as I could. I even gave my children names at one point and started asking them to pray for me.
I have to tell you though; the pain never fully goes away. I can’t image what it is like for a woman who actually physically carries the child that she aborts. All I know for me is that I have an absence in my life that I know is there. I’m always missing something. It feels as if my fatherhood is always incomplete.
I also have to say that, having been prone to sports injuries and always cutting myself with kitchen knives, I know what it is like to completely heal. A week or so goes back and I forget that I was even injured. I don’t want to completely heal of this wound yet. I fear I might forget some important memories and what God has done for me. This is a ‘good’ pain for me right now.
To love and to be loved by my girls who are with me is the greatest gift from God. I honor it and I’m faithful to it. A great blessing it is. And then sometimes I wonder how sweet it will be when all my children are together in Heaven.
Original Blog used with permission can be found here:
www.davidlgray.info/blog/2014/06/how-does-it-feel-to-be-a-post-abortive-man/