I can’t think of a more appropriate day to proclaim these words — my choice — than today, on Mother’s Day. Unlike others who had shitty mothers, I was lucky in so, so many ways. My mother was nurturing, showering me with unconditional love (when needed), wielding that guilt baton (also when necessary), and paved the way for who I should be as a woman and a mother.

When and if the time came.

To be honest, I didn’t always want to have children. Back in the 60s after a childhood friend had a botched abortion in a filthy warehouse and was later told she could never have children again, I shuddered. When another friend was gang-raped, got pregnant, and give the baby up for adoption because she couldn’t bear looking at him, I freaked.

As girls, as women, we often learn far too early the world is not always a bright and sunny place to live. I was sixteen when I got pregnant. Because Roe vs. Wade was just passed I thankfully had a choice. A choice, women who came before me fought and died for. A very difficult choice I made because I feared the world wasn’t yet ready for this biracial child of mine.

At different times of our lives, we all come to that proverbial fork in the road, where we must make those hard choices. This was mine. My inherent right to make because I believe I alone should decide what happens to this one body God gave me.

I mourn that child I lost. My first. It’s a grief like all the others I pack away. I can’t say how different my life would have been if I didn’t have that choice. But I can say, it allowed me to live a life I’d never imagined, and when the time was right, I gave birth to two wonderful children.

“Women’s rights is not only an abstraction, a cause, it is also a personal affair. It is not only about us, it is also about me and you. Just the two of us.” — Toni Morrison

With a past rooted in Roe vs Wade and that landmark decision now firmly on the chopping block, I am beyond angry. Like so many others fearing for a grim, put on those burkas future ahead, I see this as a call to arms.

And so I commemorate this date, not as a mother or a grandmother. But as a woman, and a reminder that the fight goes on. Must go on.

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