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NRLC 2013: What Wasn’t Missing and the difference that makes

Jul 3, 2013

By Joleigh Little, WTL Director, Wisconsin Right to Life

Clara Little and part of her pro-life family, Melissa Ohden

Clara Little and part of her pro-life family, Melissa Ohden

This was my 23rd National Right to Life Convention. I have literally spent more than half of my life in the right-to life movement.

This was my daughter’s second NRLC Convention. Clara was newly home from Eastern Europe last year and very much out of her element.

This year she was on game and she knew right where she belonged. (That would be lurking in front of the convention office waiting for “snuggos” from Nana Jacki or barreling into the press office to visit her “Unca Dayick.”)

Thirty eight years and a chasm of experience separate my daughter and me. The convention week is one of workshops and focus for this mommy and one of extreme play and the love of family and friends for my beautiful girl.

But there is one thing we do have in common. One thing that we look forward to with the same eager anticipation each year, and that is our time with our friends Melissa Ohden and her daughter, Olivia.

And that’s where I want to focus.

Because I want to make you think for a minute… or maybe even longer.

Melissa is my friend. She is actually a very good friend. One to whom I go for advice on parenting and life, and in whom I confide about the things that trouble me the most. (Okay, we also share a lot of recipes that involve chocolate.)

Best of friends: Clara Little (left) and Olivia Ohden

Best of friends: Clara Little (left) and Olivia Ohden

Olivia is one of Clara’s best friends. She is a year older and wiser than my Pea. She has an expansive vocabulary and she isn’t afraid to use it. She has an incredible imagination, a kind and generous heart and you can tell her parents are raising her beautifully. She is exactly the kind of child I want Clara to spend time with.

But here’s the catch. These two amazing friendships almost never were. Because, as many of you know, Melissa was aborted 38 years ago. I can barely wrap my brain around the fact that a “failure” of the absolute best kind resulted in the dynamic individual who laughs at my lame jokes and kisses my daughter on the head just as naturally as she does her own.

It’s even further distressing for me to think about what a compounded loss it would have been if Melissa hadn’t survived. Because that would mean Olivia wouldn’t be here, either. The little girl who has taught my daughter so many important things just simply wouldn’t be.

And that would be a tragedy.

The kind of tragedy that has been wreaked on our world literally millions and millions of times. The sheer number of the “missing” is absolutely overwhelming.

I simply cannot fathom it. So after pondering it a bit I usually end up crying. And so should you.

Abortion has robbed us of hundreds of millions of people worldwide. People like Melissa. People like Olivia. People like my daughter Clara, who was born to an unwed mother of a much persecuted minority race in a country where abortions outnumber live births.

So this year as I navigated my second convention as a mom, I did it in the footsteps (quite literally, in fact) of a remarkable woman, a dynamic speaker and a great friend. And as I listened to her tell her story, one I have literally heard so many times I could tell it myself, I wept. Because I do not take her friendship for granted. I know all too well that it almost wasn’t.

And upon arriving home, as I reflect on the week just past, many things make me smile. But the one that stands out the most boldly to me is who wasn’t missing. Melissa and Olivia.

And thank God for that.

Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com.

Categories: Pro-Lifers