by Anastasia Leigh

Created on: August 11, 2008

If I could talk with anyone for one hour, I'd talk to the little girl I killed when I was 17, my daughter, whom I've named Jennifer. I aborted her.

I'd want her to know how sorry I am for what I did, that I was acting selfishly, certainly not thinking of her as a human being, a baby conceived, a little girl whose life God had a plan for. But you see, God wasn't a part of my life then, any more than giving first thought to the child who's mother I was.

I believe Jennifer would have many questions for me, and though it would be the most difficult interview I would ever go through, I am confident that God (Who is now a very big part of my life) would be there, for both Jennifer and for me.

I would ask her if she knows I love her, even though I ended her life before it began. I would ask her what it's like to live in Heaven, a place much more welcoming and warm than this world surely would have been for her. I would ask her what it's like to feel the arms of Jesus around herand I would ask her how it feels to be unwanted, an inconvenience, someone I had no room for in my young and self-centered world.

Would she be able to understand when I tell her I think of her so very often, that I wonder who she could have been? Would she listen, quiet and attentive, when I explain about the day her murder suddenly hit me like a steel ball in the pit of my stomach, like a vise around my heart?
Would her eyes fill with empathetic tears when I told her my tears came forth like a dam that had been leaking for so long and finally burst forth?

Could she comprehend that her death, and my guilt, have taken me many years to overcome? Does she know that her grandparents (my mom and dad) are only just now realizing what she means to me?

Does she know that now, I am very thankful she lives where she does, for she has always lived in the home that has provided for her a perfect love, love that never disappoints, never pushes away, never seeks its own?

Were she here with me now, she would be 31, so maybe she wouldn't be a little girl anymore. Do children who go to Heaven grow? That's insignificant really. All that is of utmost importance is that she know she is the daughter of my heart, a heart that has grown immeasurably over the years.

Although I am sitting here wondering about her and what it would be like to talk to her, I know that day will come. We will one day see each other face-to-face and I can ask her all these difficult questions. I will finally know what color her eyes are, and whether her hair is blond or brown (maybe even red). I will know if she is bubbly, gentle, serious or chatty. And most of all I will know if she is...forgiving, like the Father who raised her.

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