Thank you for not aborting

Everyday until his birthday, my son counts down the numbers on the calendar. His excitement knows no bounds. “When is my birthday coming?”, he would ask with bated breath. It seemed as if the only other day that would surpass that excitement in our home was the Lord’s second coming!

His 8th birthday was probably the most special one yet, because on that day, he came to know that he was going to belong, forever. I returned to his foster home to give the best birthday surprise to him. He did not even know that I was coming! When he saw me that morning, he squealed and jumped up and down in sheer excitement.

That afternoon his foster dad (Nathan) and I took A out on a bit of an adventure. We dined at his favourite Pizza place for lunch, and when he cut his little piece of double chocolate truffle, I tuned Venky into the celebration through Skype. He then opened a handmade pop-up-heart card that I had made for him, in which the greatest surprise of his life was written in hand: Happy birthday A! With love ~ your Mommy and Daddy! At first, he was clueless.. I tried explaining that he was coming home with us, and he was still clueless. He probably thought he was moving into a new foster house with us as his new foster parents. Nathan then gave us the secret passcode: Venky and Shammi are going to be your Daddy and Mommy forever. Forever. F-O-R-E-V-E-R. The lightbulb went on. Suddenly, his smiling face became stunned, just for a moment. He kept repeating, “What? Shammi Venky mommy daddy forever??” He just couldn’t believe his little eyes. He was going home, finally! He was getting the greatest gift in his life – a mom and dad to hold, love and protect him forever. Even years later, that reality never ceases to amaze him. Almost everyday, he reminds me, “Mama, I am so happy you adopted me! You will not leave me right?” Tears overwhelm my heart when I hear those words. What a great tragedy and a great redemption all rolled into one little life!

The greatest treasure a child can possess in this world is a parent. It is the most assumed yet underestimated gift, and almost all children take this reality for granted. A child’s greatest security lies within the fold of a family. When a child is born, the womb is his secure space. When he enters a strange and foreign world, the mother’s bosom is his secure space. When he enters school, the home becomes his secure space. Yet a child whose life has been taken away in the womb experiences the greatest treachery there ever can me – the safest place has become a shocking place, a sacred ground has become sacrilegious. A child who has been abandoned into a strange world experiences a great tragedy, for the mother who birthed him has left him alone, forever. This child will probably never experience bosom love, can never have the comfort of suckling a mother’s supple breasts and finding his rest there.

Yet, I want to thank his birth mother. I really do.

To abandon is far better than to abort.

To you dear birth mother of my beloved son, I say this: thank you for not aborting!

I do not know you, you left no trace. You bore a son with great delight, yet you forgot to care for his needs in the womb. Perhaps you had no money for the supplements your ballooning body so needed. Perhaps you were ignorant that these are necessary to birth a healthy and nutritious baby. You must have faced much pressure from your family, perhaps your husband beat you several times. Tears may have been your food night and day. With no money and no help, you may have thought it best to abort the seed in your womb. Yet, you didn’t have the courage. Your husband wanted a son. You wanted the child too, badly. Perhaps he would be the source of your eternal happiness. Perhaps. But when he was born, all hopes were crushed. When you saw his broken body, you were aghast. The prognosis of a bunch of foreign words that have no equivalent in your own tongue, with prospects of surgeries after surgeries for years to come must have caused you to faint. You saw his curls, his doe eyes, his chubby cheeks, his toothless smile and longed for him. Yet you saw his back and loathed him. Should I just kill him? No, that is treachery, murder. Should I just throw him away in the trash? No, I love him too much to do that. You took the care to leave him, a week after he was born, in a local hospital. There he was, pining away with needles pricking his fragile body, day after day, month after month. For nearly two years.

Then another mother entered in. She saw his body pricked with needles and fastened with tubes and took pity on him. Her eyes met his and she knew then that God was speaking this word: Live. Yet all earthly parameters were prophesying his death. She chose life over death and brought him home, where his healing flowed. She raised the money for his surgeries, and became his first real mother. To you, my beloved sister and co-mother, I say this: thank you for choosing life over death, love over indifference. It has made the world of difference to my sweet boy.

To live with the horror of pinpricks everyday is a brutal life. Add to that the trauma of abandonment. And to that the struggle to live with only half your body. And the underdevelopment, and the craving for love, and watching your friends going home. It requires grit and patience to come through such harsh beginnings. Countless volunteers sacrificed their comforts and cried with my son so many nights. They watched over his little soul, fed him with the Bread who is more than life, comforted him in his sorrows and rejoiced in his victories. To these my courageous forerunners, I say this: thank you for loving A for who he is, and not giving up on him. A is the chirpy and silly boy he is, thanks to all of you for dusting your sparkles of life on him.

A loves life. He loves to do life because he has been surrounded with people who love to do life.

He loves to live because those around him live to love.

They don’t see his imperfect body and write him off, but they see his imperishable soul and know there is life and love there. This is the reality of every child, born or yet to be born. They want to live. They are oblivious to their disabilities and imperfections unless you insist on making an issue out of it. Your daughters will prove twice better than your sons if only you cease to compare the two and cherish them from within the womb. They will be your little helpers if only you look at them as productive people and not as burdens for you to carry life-long. They will increase your net worth, not deplete your bank account, if only you train and discipline them. I have met a few who have tried to abort their children just because they are fearful of raising up another child. They fear the economic strain. They fear the drain on energy. They fear the social pressure. They fear the ridicule (could you not exercise self-control?). They fear, fear and fear. Fear breeds death. Faith builds life. Thankfully, these friends restrained their impulse and brought forth such beautiful, precious lives that have gone on to become great assets to their families.

If you are one such who is contemplating ending the life of a voiceless soul within you, may I entreat you to this? Don’t abort, give up for adoption. They will be celebrated by another. As of now, there are ten times more parents waiting in a queue to adopt than there are children. The special needs adoption list is crying out for love. Someone, somewhere acknowledges the child blooming within you. Give it up to them. God will care for this child.

While everyone was singing “happy birthday” during A’s advance birthday celebration, my minion was pumping up and down with jubilation on his Dad’s lap. He didn’t do this earlier when he got the gifts, or when the dance lights zoomed in and out around him. When I quizzed him as to why he was so excited at that moment, he replied, “Because it is my happy birthday!”

Indeed, it is. He can sing thus now, because he lives.