WARNING READ WITH CAUTION...THIS POST MAY CAUSE YOU TO CHANGE YOUR THINKING!

If you are looking for a fun post today, do yourself a favor, go to someone else's blog.

What you are about to read here is long, serious, controversial, and heartfelt.

Proceed with caution!

You have been warned!

Still here?

Okay, you asked for it.

Here Goes:

For almost 40 years of my life I was told I was an accident. My conception was the result of a bad fitting diaphragm. I know I must have learned about those in health class in public high school, but, I truly would not recognize one if I saw it. I believe it is a little cup like apparatus, but I could be wrong.

To add to the fact that I was "an accident," I was also born with several physical deformities, some of which (the ones in my heart) I did not even find out about until I was 38 years old. Currently, I am on 3 different heart meds and must be tested several times a year...in the future I may need corrective heart surgery...but, for now, the meds seem to be doing the job.

I was an "accident" to my mother; but, as I have told her time and time again, an "on-purpose" to God...a SURPRISE...a GIFT from heaven!



That is me, in the picture above, circa 1963.

Very possibly, if my accidental conception had occurred in the last thirty or so years in Wichita, Kansas, and Dr. Tiller was my mother's doctor, I would not be alive today. With ultrasound technology, he probably would have seen the missing ankle and toes, and partial foot; possibly recognized sooner the malformations of my heart and valves and would have suggested that my life would be difficult...that I was not viable.

I won't lie to you, my life hasn't been easy. As you can see, I wore a big metal brace on my right leg. I had one for day and one for night. They grew as I grew. Unfortunately, wearing that brace 24/7 was akin to binding my foot and leg and so, by the time I was ten years old there was about a 3-4 inch difference in leg length.

I was looking at old home movies the other night, and the limp I had as a child was almost unbearable to watch.

So, at ten years old I had major surgery on my left leg. The knee was removed and replaced upside down, and stapled back in so as to stunt the growth in that leg in the hopes, that the right leg would eventually catch up. To this day I have long scars on either side of my left knee (my mother called them railroad tracks). Today, I have less than an inch difference in leg length. I still need to buy two vastly different size shoes and have a lift put on the right shoe; I still walk with a limp.

As I grow older, I have more pain and difficulty; but, I have not worn a metal brace since I was 14 years old!!

When it was time to enter first grade, I had to meet with the pastor before being admitted. I realized much later, that he was probably trying to determine if the brace on my leg somehow constricted my brain. Since that was not the case, I was admitted and have always done well in academia.

My father's motto was: "If a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing well."

That lesson has served me for 48 years.

When the weather would get humid, the screws on either side of the brace would squeak when I walked. Sometimes, the big bolts on either side of the ankle would rub against my skin and cause painful welts. In the summer especially, perspiration would become trapped under the leather band that held the brace in place just under my knee, and I would develop a painful rash.

Between the brace and the large difference in leg length, I made quite a distinctive sound when I limped around elementary school. The kids would say: "Clickety clack, clickety clack, when you hear that you know it's Malack."

It's almost funny now, but back then, I wanted more than anything else in the world to be like those other kids. I was probably the only child in history who would have given anything in the world to get to go to gym, and wear those ugly green gym uniforms, rather than sit in the office or work in the library!

Because we wore uniform jumpers, and even when school was not in session my mother loved to put me in frilly dresses, my brace was almost always exposed. Grown people would stare at me ALL THE TIME. My mother would tell me they were ignorant and to ignore them.

As a child, I wanted nothing more than to throw that darn brace away and wake up one morning with a magically healed leg and foot (the miracles at Lourdes, held such promise for me), a closet filled with beautiful one size shoes (instead of those Herman Munster shoes, as I referred to them), beautiful long silky blond hair, and a great singing voice!

YEA...SO...MY...CHILDHOOD...WASN'T...PERFECT.

WAS YOURS?

Was YOUR figure perfect?

YOUR hair just right?

YOUR face clear of pimples?

Of course not!

So, who is to say BEFORE a child is born that his or her life is not worth living?

NOT me, NOT you, NOT a doctor, NOT ANYONE!!

So, how do we fix it?

Do we fix it by plastering, all over the Internet and outside abortion clinics, pictures of dead, decapitated babies (whose skulls have been crushed)?

Do we fix it by picketing abortion clinics and holding candlelight vigils outside, while we call to the woman entering and harass her as she is making probably the hardest decision of her whole entire life?

NO, I DON'T THINK SO!

BY THAT POINT, IT IS TOO LATE!!

When those horrible pictures come out...some of the same pictures I might add, that so many detractors of Dr. Tiller decry...Respect Life people appear as ghouls!

When women are called to from the street as they enter a LEGAL CLINIC, Respect Life people appear uncaring and harassing!

I have had many a woman come to my office over the years, and cry her heart out to me because she felt she had no one, and nowhere to turn when she had found herself pregnant, years earlier; and, ultimately with heavy heart, knowing she was excommunicating herself from her Church, nonetheless, decided on abortion.

I have had moms whose teenage daughters became pregnant, come and tell me that other teenage girls, after they found out the pregnancy was going to term, crushed out their lit cigarettes on the daughter's extended belly, all the while telling her to get an abortion. It's no big deal, they have had more than one!

TEENS AND PRE-TEENS ARE SAYING THIS!!

SEX IS NO BIG DEAL TO THEM!!

LIFE IS NO BIG DEAL TO THEM!!!

REACTION IS NOT THE ANSWER!

EDUCATION, COMPASSION, EDUCATION(Yes, I know I wrote that twice), PRIVATELY FUNDED ALTERNATIVES, COMPASSION, EDUCATION, and PRIVATELY FUNDED ALTERNATIVES ARE THE ANSWERS!!

Thirteen days ago, I wrote in this very space:

We have forgotten that a zygote, an embryo, a fetus, or any other scientific name you would prefer to use rather than BABY, carries with it this definition: a living organism, i.e. LIFE, growing under a woman's heart!

UNDER HER HEART!!!

If every little girl was taught from the earliest age, that babies grow under her heart maybe, just maybe, attitudes would change.

The time is NOW!

The NEED is GREAT!

Respect Life people: WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?

I can only do so much with the one hour a week, from September through April, my catechists and I get with the boys and girls!

We need YOU to fund alternatives that WE can talk about!

We need YOU to come up with curriculum, under the auspices of the Magisterium that WE can teach...not only in the parish and parochial schools, but also to be used as special assemblies and workshops in the public schools!

We need YOU to PRAY for every little girl in the world that she may grow up to value the priceless GIFT that God gives when HE gives us LIFE!!

WE NEED IT NOW!

WHAT are WE waiting for???