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§ What is Pro-Life Unity?

To achieve Pro-Life Unity we will establish standards that we all agree upon, and efforts that we all regularly participate in. By working together we can challenge the culture of death and the apathy which is pervasive in our society.

§ Action Code

    People tend to tell me the most intimate, personal details about their lives.  My best friend says it’s because I allow them to.  I don’t.  I just don’t shut them down when they start telling me, like she does.  She’ll change the subject, interrupt them in mid-sentence or worse, turn around and walk away.  She thinks it’s because I’m too nice. I believe it’s because most people need to talk some things out regardless of some of the more “personal” details and I know people need someone to listen to them.  Sometimes it’s nice to be picked as the one needing to be there for someone to just listen without judgment or opinion.
  Recently, I went in to get my hair cut by the mother of my daughter’s best friend.  We hadn’t really ever talked besides hi and bye, but since she did hair and I had hair, I thought it would be a good opportunity to talk about our daughters and get to know each other.
    Once she had me in her chair, she wasted no time in sharing with me how her husband had died a year and a half ago.  My daughter had told me this had happened but I didn’t know any of the details until my new Russian hairdresser friend Eva, filled me in on every sad little detail.
    It just so happened that my wedding anniversary was that next weekend and I mentioned it to Eva.  “Your anniversary is September 12?”  Eva asked me with a thick Russian accent.  “My wedding anniversary is September 12!”  She said.  “Have you ever heard that my husband died last year?” she asked me, as my butt hit the seat and the plastic smock snapped and sailed around me as if by the wind of an angry sea.  It settled back down around me as I shook my head no.  I could almost hear my best friend Lisa sigh and whisper, “Oh, here we go. Another episode of Tell Shell…”
    “No,” I replied, settling back, “but I did hear that he had.  That must have been awful,” I encouraged.
    And then my new friend proceeded to tell me a story about life, love, death and regret that I won’t soon forget.
    “It was a few days before my birthday and I had planned a trip for me and my family.”  She explained.  “I always made the plans and my husband always went along with it.  He was such a good man.  I really never knew that before.  Or at least I didn’t appreciate that about him.  Anyway, he came to me the night before we left and told me he really didn’t feel well.  This was his rare way of telling me he wanted to skip this trip.  I knew it then and I know it now but I wanted to go and I wanted him to go so I just told him he’d be okay and to please get packed and we took off in the morning as planned.
    The last night we were there my dear husband came to me and asked me to feel his forehead.  He said he wasn’t feeling right and was cold and clammy.  Impatiently, I felt his head and told him he was fine.  ‘Have some wine and relax,’ I said.  ‘It’s our last night!’ I added and focused back on the conversation I was having with my friends who I wouldn’t see again until our next visit later in the summer.
    My husband slept poorly and was up early getting our bags loaded into the rental vehicle.  He looked ashen and pale as he passed by the table my friend and I were drinking coffee at.  I told him to sit and relax.  It was our last chance to visit, I told him, before we were to take off.  He sat next to my daughter who was eleven at the time, and proceeded to have a massive heart attack.  We didn’t know what to do, Shelley.  You see, we were in shock.  We didn’t know to do the CPR the right way and when the paramedics finally got there it had been about fifteen minutes.  They got his heart going somewhat but didn’t know if we had kept it going well enough to not do damage and it didn’t look good.”  She paused as tears ran down her face and mixed with her perfectly applied makeup.  “Honey, you don’t have to tell me this,” I said, giving her the out if she wanted it.  “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this,” she said, and I heard my Lisa snort in my head. “But it’s good for me to tell.  It’s cleansing.” She added.  I knew she needed to go on. 
    “He was in the hospital for two days, but the doctor was not hopeful.  Everything was shutting down.  On the second day as I stood next to my husband who I had never really appreciated, the doctor came in.  I asked him point blank, ‘how long?’  The doctor put his finger to his lips and gently took my elbow, guiding me out of my husband’s room and into the hallway.  ‘The hearing is the last to go,’ he explained.  ‘His major organs are shutting down. There’s really nothing we can do. You might want to say your goodbyes.’
    Devastated, I left the doctor and went back to my husband.  I stared down at him as he lay unresponsive; the only sign of life was the constant beep, beep, beep of the monitors that kept his heart alive.  ‘The hearing is the last to go.’  I knelt down and as I did, the emotions building inside of me showed themselves.  As anger.  How can this be happening? I thought, ‘How can you leave me?’ I asked him out loud, close to his ear, ‘How can you leave your daughter at the exact time that she needs you most?’ I asked, the anger crowding out all rational thought, changing from fear into anger like a virus changing strains, mutating and causing devastation.  ‘Who is going to be there when she starts dating, when she starts high school?  She needs you; I need you, HOW CAN YOU DO THIS TO US?!’  And then I stopped. Because one lone tear had escaped and was slowly trickling down the ashen cheek of the husband I thought couldn’t hear me.  My heart stopped in my chest and I bent and kissed his tear away and my anger and then my husband faded away.  He was gone.”
    Tears of her own were rolling down her face but she didn’t notice. I wiped away my own tears and wiped my face with the plastic smock.  “I like my life, Shelley.  I have my shop and my Kaitlin and life is good.  But I miss my husband.  I wish I would have told him that he was a good man.  I wish I would have told him he was a good father and a good husband.  I wish I would have appreciated just one time that he cut the grass and took out the trash and changed my oil and rubbed my feet.  I wish I hadn’t told him many, many times that I did so much for him and when I died he would miss me terribly because it never once entered my mind that if he died, I would miss him and he never said this to me, even though I told him a million times.  I wish I would have told him that he mattered to me; I wish I had known that he had.  I never knew what a precious gift he had been to me all my life and I wish it didn’t take his death for me to realize.  But most of all, I wish when I had that last opportunity to tell him and I knew it, I instead chose to yell at him.  ‘The hearing is the last to go.’  I wish I would have told him how wonderful her made my life and that I would miss him…”
    I left there numb, a bit drained and hollow.  I was so sad for my new friend but as I left she allowed her positive outlook to speak last.  “I know you write,” she said to me as I offered to pay for my haircut and she wouldn’t take it.  “Get my story out,” she pleaded with me.  “Tell people about this thing that no one sees until it’s too late.  That people truly don’t appreciate what they have until it’s gone.  “It’s like an exclusive club,” she whispered as she escorted me to the door.  We all know life and death happens, but until it happens to you, you don’t really know.  Tell people to appreciate life in all of its forms.  I didn’t realize my husband could hear me.  I thought he was gone.  This will haunt me until my own death.  Let people know that their perspectives are transparent.  What seems to be may not be.  But most of all, tell people to enjoy each other, love each other and take the time to be with each other.  Go home to your husband and instead of being irritated with him because he puts his dish in the sink instead of the dishwasher, kiss him and love him and put the dish away yourself.  Because one day, your dish may be the only one needing to be put away because you eat by yourself now.  Tell people that life can take loved ones in an instant and take your life as you know it with them.  And once it’s gone, it’s gone and all you have to live with are the memories you made with each other.  So make sure those memories are the ones you want with you; make sure that the memories you’re making are memories you can live with and will keep you company for the rest of your life.