JAMES FLASKAMP Heartbeat

HEARTBEAT

By James Flaskamp

I remember hearing my daughter’s heartbeat for the first time. Each reassuring pulse whispering that everything was going to be alright.

As I watched her tiny 12-week-old body dance in a ballroom of amniotic fluid, my wife and I captivated by the black and white pixels knitted together on the ultrasound screen, the same way God had knit together the life He had entrusted to us. The technician told us Ava’s heart had been beating since she was about three weeks old. The tears made a charge from my heart straight to my eyes and overcame my pride. I cried in that ultrasound room holding hands with my wife and didn’t care who saw because the power of LIFE was infinitely stronger than my insecurities.

I wasn’t always this way. The years have changed me from what I was. Each passing year’s wisdom coming in waves of experiences and revelations bringing me to a destination I’ve never been before and never will be again. Like a needle moving slowly across the million little grooves in a

record. The song of my life used to have different lyrics. Refrains coming out of my mouth like, “Who are YOU to tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?” Choruses of, “Who are YOU to impose your values on someone else?” Verses like, “Who are YOU to think that a man has any idea what a woman goes through?” “Who are YOU??” I confess I didn’t really know who I was then, my identity derived from the world around me, opinions, trends, celebrities, musicians, politicians shaping my sense of self, feeding the blaze in my heart with the coal of a bandwagon locomotive. My blinded eyes focused solely on myself but seeing nothing of what I really was. My old self used to think people like my current self were insane.

I remember hearing my daughter’s heartbeat for the first time. It became a dictionary teaching me the true definition of insanity. Insanity is parent willingly killing child. Insanity is 50 million inconvenient American children. Insanity is fear’s push… keeping us in our seats when we should be standing against evil. Insanity is rejecting, “choose life,” while being thankful our own mothers chose life.

Insanity is selling limbs and organs given unwillingly. Insanity is taking a box labeled “murder,” repackaging it in a box labeled “choice,” and feeling much better about it. Insanity is being KNEE-DEEP in the blood of the innocent. Insanity is a poet seeing the beauty of life in everything but an unborn baby. Insanity is demanding equal rights for EVERYONE except the one group of people who truly Cannot. Defend. Themselves.

Brothers. Sisters. Sons. Daughters. How lost have we become? How far have we gone from everything that is decent and honorable and just? When did it become insane to think that every life matters, no matter how small or insignificant?

I remember hearing my daughter’s heartbeat for the first time. That was the moment the fading embers of “choice” in my heart finally died out completely. That was the moment the needle on my record player moved on to the next track. My refrain has changed. You see, it’s hard to deny beautiful humanity once you’ve seen it with your own eyes. It’s hard to deny miracles when you’ve spent 10 days in the NICU witnessing one. I can no longer look into my daughter’s face and see her as a CHOICE. There is hope for redemption because I’ve seen it in my own

life. The record hasn’t finished playing yet. My needle hasn’t reached its final destination. Neither has yours. Which is why I think the least we can do is have a moment of silence for the 40 years and 50 million tiny, beautiful spirits who never got the same chance at the life we all share.

I remember hearing my daughter’s heartbeat for the first time. Each reassuring pulse whispering that everything is going to be alright.