Coming Home

I wish you could meet Simone.

Of course that's not her real name. And of course you will never meet her. But God let me meet her.

Yesterday, as He planned since before time, a girl from Chicago and a girl from New Jersey crossed paths in the South Bronx. And next spring a child will be born who was otherwise scheduled for death.

Simone came to our center all the way from New Jersey. She googled us one day, came pushing one child in a stroller and asking for an abortion for the one she held in her womb. That morning we had been slammed by walk-ins, and by the time I started counseling her, she had waited 40 minutes. After filling out the intake form and talking with her a bit, I didn't have much hope. She wouldn't even watch the informational film we have concerning the different types of abortion procedures. "It's my choice and I've already made up my mind," she kept repeating, cutting me off as I entreated her to reconsider.

Simone's daughter is beautiful, a laughing, smiling, silly little girl, nearly three years old. As we talked, Simone and I figured out that she was about 9 weeks along in her pregnancy, and I brought out a model we have of what her child looks like at that stage -- just a few inches long, but formed exactly as you would expect, tiny hands and feet, eyes and nose. And though Simone didn't even want to look at it, her daughter loved the little baby, giggling and reaching for it when I showed it to her.

I'll never know what exactly changed Simone's mind; I was saying so many different things and approaching her situation from every angle I could think of . . . but I suspect it was this miniature child, lifeless but mirroring the life within.

Suddenly the walls broke down. Through her tears, she told me so much she had been holding back -- the controlling boyfriend who routinely beats her and her daughter, how much she misses her mom who died a few years ago, that she stopped going to church after her mom died because her boyfriend gets jealous everytime she leaves the apartment.

Trapped. That's the word she used. She didn't want to get an abortion. She couldn't see any other way out.

And God let me be there. I was blessed to cross her path at that moment, to be in a position to offer help. EMC has connections to many organizations and social services throughout the city, and one of the best is the Sisters of Life, an order of nuns specifically entrusted with protecting the sanctity of life. They offer more help than you could imagine, and I told Simone that they could help her escape, could help her get away from this man, could help her start over. "Please come with me," I said, "Please come with me right now to Manhattan and you can start over today. You can keep your baby, we will help you." I promised.

And amazingly, she agreed to come with me to Manhattan. She had known me for less than an hour, but she trusted me and and that we could help her. And I am so grateful, so incredibly glad, to have been there, to have been connected to the resources, to have been able to keep that promise.

Five hours, four subway lines, and three different convents later, Simone and her daughter and I reached her new home. We had to visit two locations of the Sisters of Life before being able to place her that evening with a home run by the Missionaries of Charity. She can stay there until after the baby is born. She wants to keep her baby; she always had. She kept asking her daughter questions if she was excited about shopping for new baby clothes and picking out a name. She wants to start fresh.

Not only did Simone and her daughter reach a safe place, away from the abuse and pain they had known for so long. Not only is she keeping her baby, and thrilled about it. But while we were at the Sisters of Life, trying to figure out where she would go, we had a moment to step into the chapel. We knelt down on the benches, Simone in the bench in front of me and the Mother Superior in the bench behind me. Silence and peace, and as Simone prayed the tears ran down her face. She turned around and told me, "It feels like I've come home."

Welcome home, Simone. We have such joy to meet you here.