The couple’s wedding ceremony was celebrated at their church surrounded by family and friends.
They were in their 20s when they married and started having babies. She gave birth to three children in five years. He was on the road for work often, and she capably managed the household in his absence. The happy, loving family attended church regularly.
At almost 30 years old her fourth pregnancy spontaneously aborted early in the second trimester for no discernable reason.
The fifth pregnancy in her early 30s seemed different, but changes were to be expected with each pregnancy as she aged. It wasn’t until she had reached full-term that the blinding headaches started. When her labor pains began, he drove her to the hospital an hour away from home, their three children left behind with her sister.
The hospital determined her condition was critical eclampsia. The doctors informed her husband they could not save both mother and infant. “We will choose to let the infant live and let your wife die,” they told him. “Like hell you will!” he shouted, carrying her out the door in search of a doctor to save her, watching life slip from her face as he raced to another hospital.
She was immediately admitted where the infant died within hours of birth as they worked to stabilize her condition. She narrowly survived. Finally, the couple returned home with the infant corpse. He made a small headstone for the deceased newborn boy and buried him in their church’s cemetery.
Her recovery was slow. She struggled to manage things that used to come easily to her. She was confused, her moods erratic. The following spring, at age 35, she was pregnant again. The family steeled themselves with the guarded hope that mom and baby would be okay.
The woman struggled with excessive weight gain during this pregnancy, but a healthy infant was born. Problems from her earlier postpartum trauma were present when she delivered the child. Once home, the undiagnosed symptoms worsened. Her continual crying was deemed hysteria. When her baby girl was three months old, she was committed to a mental institution.
Her husband, now left alone to raise their adolescent children, had a new baby adding to the weight of his blue-collar job. Shouldering it all, he fought the following year to get guardianship of her person from the state and took her home.
No longer deemed mentally stable, she was returned to the institution cyclically, where insulin shock therapy accompanied a laundry list of ever-changing drugs. Nightly he knelt at her bedside praying for her and their family. He attended church weekly, asking for guidance from their pastor. With all efforts failing him, he sought counsel from the bishop, requesting permission for a vasectomy. The bishop told him doing so would forfeit all his rights to any sacrament of the church. He was given no choice.
The woman was never the same. The man refused to abandon her, nurturing her to the end. He continued to attend church without being able to participate as a baptized child of God. No pastor administered a blessing in the final hours of his life after 60 years of dedication to his wife, his family, his community and his church.
Lack of care from trusted institutions took the children’s mother, though she continued to have a heartbeat. The father was lost to their mother’s demise, the family torn apart. The parents’ pain became a generational mourning, deprived of their right to life; a mother upon which all lives depend.
“Abortion is murder!” they chant.
Fools, and liars.
– Marilyn Beckett
About the author:
I am a UI alumni and have lived in Moscow for 50 years. I have worn many hats in my life. I have four children and six grandchildren who are proud I take a stand for what’s right.
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