I felt the great disadvantage yesterday of being male. I was at Summit abortuary and Marie and Alicia were at American Family Planning. Twice during the morning I had young women “hooked” into a conversation, just on the brink of turning the other way. I was keenly aware of the critical moment in each conversation, when she needed the right word, the right course of action. The women sidewalk counselors seem to have an intensity that I lack, and at those critical moments I knew I needed it. The companions they brought didn’t help at all. The first one had a boyfriend sitting in the car; when he saw that she wasn’t going straight in, he honked his horn and gestured for her to get going. The second one had an impatient cousin, who waited by the door, anxious to get inside. When the woman I was speaking with moved towards the door, I told her, “When you’re in there and I’m out here, I’m going to be in pain.” She said, “Don’t. I’ll call you. I promise.”
While I waited on the sidewalk for either, or both, of them to come out, I prayed a chaplet. That’s when another woman who had gone in much earlier came out and told us she had changed her mind. And later in the day I did get a phone call from a woman to whom I had spoken only very briefly. I will visit with her today.
Another illustration, I guess, of “The wind blows where it wills.”
