9/26/02 - Burying the Dead

September 26, 2009

What I saw at the Abortion Clinic this Week was someone who pops into my mind’s eye every now and then as I keep vigil at the abortion clinic Saturday mornings. It's a man whom I have never met because he lives on the other side of the world from me. I've just heard about him. So the image in my mind is one of my own making. It’s vague, yet it’s vivid.

I heard his story from his daughter. She is a Vietnamese, Catholic, Dominican Sister who lives in a Religious community in Texas. I don’t remember the context of the conversation that prompted her to tell me about her father I suppose because, after I heard what she had to say, the rest of the conversation paled by comparison.

Sr. was a native of Vietnam and she grew up there during the war. Her childhood memories were of constant danger and violence all around. She said that very late at night her father would leave the home and family and not return until just before dawn. Under cover of darkness her father went through the streets, roads and villages to collect and bury the bodies and body parts of people who were killed in the war that day and who were simply left behind.

It was stocking to imagine bodies and body parts sprawled on the ground, left to rot where they had been killed, even if there were a war in that country. At the time, pictures in the news were not as raw as they are today. I just had not imagined such a scene nor do I think, had others who were themselves not in the war zone. So, I was taken aback to imagine that a man would risk his safety and comfort to do such a dangerous, frightening and unpleasant work of charity for deceased strangers who could never even thank him.

Until that conversation, I had no reason to think of such a scene as dead bodies and body parts in the streets. And still, after that, I suppose I would have considered it just a cruel reality of war that some unfortunate people – but not me – had to see dead bodies and body parts every day and night and so, were forced to decide whether to walk away or to do something. That was someone else’s life, someone else’s challenge I thought and to his credit, my friend’s father responded heroically. By his courage and kindness, he afforded the deceased the dignity they deserve as human beings, as children of God. By his heroic response, he demonstrated to me, years later and thousands of miles away, how we Christians are called upon in our own life and time, to perform the work of mercy which calls out to us to bury our dead.

If ever I had thought of what it meant to "bury the dead," I would have probably thought it meant to make funeral arrangements. I never, ever would have taken this directive literally, that is, I never would have taken it to mean going out in the dark of night to find and bury the bodies and body parts of strangers. That was beyond my imagination, until Sr. told me about her father and still, I did not take it personally.

Then, one day, while I prayed in front of the abortion clinic, I got it. I remembered that Vietnamese man because I had become like that Vietnamese man. Like him, I find myself, on my side of the world, in a state of war going into the streets and making arrangements for the dead. Every day here in my country, the most innocent people are killed and their tiny bodies are sprawled through the streets of my city, at every one of the seven abortion clinics here. Tiny bodies of murdered children are thrown in plastic garbage bags inside plastic garbage cans and eventually hauled off to medical garbage dumps - somewhere. Their graves aren’t marked. Intentionally, they and their tiny remains are obscured. The little casualties of war in my country are afforded no dignity in death. So, that’s why I go to the abortion clinic Saturday mornings.

I realize that I can’t change the law. I can’t change any woman’s mind. I can’t convince anyone to stop the war on a small or large scale. It’s so much bigger than I am that it just has to be God’s work.

But I can and I will do something for the tiny casualties of war. I can and I will do what I can to afford these tiny, innocent souls some dignity by acknowledging that they are my brothers and sisters, that I see and I know they are being murdered inside that building across the street from me and that I care that they are hurt.

So, I keep vigil as they leave this world, one after another on Saturday mornings. I stand by their side, from outside, just as I would want someone to stand by my side as I leave this world. In my prayers, I can say I care about you even though your mother, father, perhaps grandparents, aunts and/or uncles, do not care for you or maybe do not even know about you right now. I am an adoptive mother. I choose to care about you and to love you - somebody else’s child. I am here for you and I will remember you and I will be here for your sisters and brothers.

I don’t consider myself heroic because I stand on a sidewalk and say some prayers once a week. I don’t face any danger or ridicule for what I do. There is hardly any traffic along this street on Saturday morning, other than the cars driving into and out of the clinic. No one sees or cares, really. But my presence is more than a gesture, or a political or religious statement, thought at times past, it has been that too.

For me, now, there is a delicate, real and growing connection with the babies inside the abortuary across the street who are drawing their last breaths. I realize that I – anyone – can simply go out into the streets and claim these human castoffs as my own, to care for spiritually in their greatest hour of need and to love forever after.

There is a surprising sense of joy in that – a personal sense, that even as these tiny children are driven out of this ungracious world, my own family is growing. I think of these children from time to time throughout the week. I call upon them to remember me also. I feel we know each other and we care about each other and we can and will be there for each other. We have a connection and it is real, because they are now and always were and always will be - real.