Intimate Wars (31 page)

She said, “Just
hold
her.”

I realized that Sasha was having an acute anxiety attack. Whatever could her three-year-old mind make of all this? She had been taken away from all the security and familiarity she had ever known, barraged with new sights, sounds, and terrifying large spaces with this woman who spoke strange words and tried to hold her. It must have been some kind of nightmare.

I went into the bedroom with her, closed the door, and turned off the lights. We lay down on the bed and I held her next to me. She screamed and thrashed. She tried to push me away. “Shh . . . it's alright,” I told her. “Sasha, shh—try and sleep. I won't hurt you.”

She finally fell asleep, exhausted.

The last night we were in Moscow, I took Sasha to Red Square. It was snowing lightly. The cupolas of St. Basil's Cathedral rose to the black sky in fantastic shapes and colors like snow cones. We basked in the moment, and I knew that one day I would be back here with her.

She was wild again in the airport. We were late for our flight. I found a cart, lifted Sasha, put her in the pullout where pocketbooks are usually kept, placed the luggage on the bottom, and began to run. Racing through the airport to get to the gate, she put her arms out like a bird and made flying motions, screaming with delight. I passed escalators, reading signage at warp speed as I yelled, “Excuse me! Excuse me!” My chest felt like it was going to explode. I had to make this flight to New York.

Finally, we arrived at the security section for our gate. I tried to catch my breath, but Sasha ran in and out through the metal detectors. I followed her, setting off the alarms with my metal hip. I stopped to reorganize our bags, and when I looked up, Sasha was gone. I looked around and saw an older woman leaning over her. She brought Sasha over to me and asked, “Is this your daughter?”

“Yes,” I said as I tried to hold onto Sasha.

“She says she doesn't have a mother.”

I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach and struggled to gain control. It was too much to explain, so I simply thanked the woman for catching her.

 

FEBRUARY 15, 2006. It was our family's anniversary—two years from the day Sasha came to New York with me. I took her out to dinner and sang “Happy Anniversary” to the tune of “Happy Birthday,” which was her favorite song (birthdays were not celebrated in the orphanage). Mahin sat next to
her and told her the story of her homecoming. There would come a day when she would ask for a more complete story, for me to tell her where she came from and why she was here. I would tell her as much as I knew.

As I put Sasha to bed later that night, she smiled. “I know who you are,” she said.

“Who am I?”

“You are my mother.”

“Yes. And you are my daughter.”

She laughed. After two years, she was beginning to trust this, and so was I. We had found each other. I was Sasha's home, and she was mine.

My mother and Murray, her companion for thirty-five years now, formed part of our home, too, when they came to visit me shortly after I adopted Sasha. My mother had been going blind for the last three years with macular degeneration, and I could gauge the level of her declining sight by the nuances of her critique of me. “Your ass is too wide,” she used to say. “Your breasts are showing. Why are you wearing flat shoes? You should dye your hair blonde again.” Now she just touched me and told me how much she loved me, her frail hands embracing me while her clouded eyes searched my face. Oddly, I missed the criticism. This new expression of love felt somehow inauthentic.

But watching my mother get to know and love Sasha, I felt my love for her change. For the first time I experienced the joy of family and a true sense of being home. I thought of the moment I'd brought Sasha home to meet my mother. I'd slowed the car, wanting to freeze the moment of anticipation, to hold it forever. Sasha ran across the lawn as my mother watched from the window . . . and then she was in my mother's arms, my mother, my daughter, then me. My mother had always had problems giving and receiving, but here was a
gift that was defined by the giving. With Sasha there were no boundaries, and now the boundaries to my love for my mother also dissolved. I watched the light in my mother's eyes as she held Sasha tightly and kissed her with passionate force, laughing loudly at Sasha's funny antics and mothering her in a way I did not remember experiencing myself.

She became ill with Alzheimer's. She was afraid she would be put away, and no amount of reassurance would convince her otherwise. When she began to die, I went to stay with her in Florida. In the pain and struggle of her oncoming death, I found more warmth and intensity than ever before. I was her daughter, her sister, her mother, and her friend. As I held her in my arms, her childishness became a bittersweet burden. I diapered her, fed her, gave her medication, soothed her when she cried out, kissed her all over. I sensed memories of the time I existed within her body. I was holding her in her hospital bed at home when she began to turn into a corpse, her beloved Chopin waltzes and nocturnes playing on the CD player. It was the most intimate and loving interaction I ever had with her.

 

A FEW DAYS LATER, I sat in my house on the bay, eagerly awaiting the sunrise. I wrote as I looked for the light of dawn. I was no longer afraid of death. I said yes to life because that is all we know. And living with Sasha made the whole experience bigger, almost epic, and at the same time intimate, sacred, and precious.

Sasha would carry me into the future. I was a mother, and all the philosophical questions of my life were now played out in the smallest of places. I knew there would be no lack of battles for her to fight in the generational struggle for women's rights. As my ancestors had done for me, I would instill in her a sense of romance in revolution. I would teach
her that it is never purely a cerebral or theoretical process, although analysis can give it form and direction. Revolution at its core is driven by love.

I took Sasha with me to Choices sometimes. Outside the entrance, we'd see dependable Sister Dorothy, still standing outside the front doors handing out rosaries and pink plastic fetuses in rain or shine after all these years. We would nod “good mornings” when we saw each other, but we never really entered into conversation until she found out that I had adopted a child. She began to give me children's books, little Bible stories that I accepted but did not use. Aware of my love of philosophy, she even gave me a copy of “Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing,” the famous treatise in which Kierkegaard writes of the responsibility of single-minded spiritual seeking, offering clues to the nature of the good while insisting that each of us find it for ourselves. Though I never forgot that she was the enemy of everything I held sacred, I was touched by her gesture.

One day when I stopped to chat with her outside the clinic, I shared with Sister Dorothy how much I loved being a mother. She smiled. “I am sure you are a good mother. But you would be a better one if you stopped killing all those little Sashas in there.”

At that moment I was filled with absolute certainty of the one true thing I knew: that there were women and girls who were waiting for my help that day and for the foreseeable future, and that this war to stop me and others from doing that would never end in my lifetime. I was grateful to play my part and I had learned to love the struggle.

Sasha took my hand. Together we turned and walked into Choices.

 

 

 

 

 

MY FIRST THANKS go to three women deeply loved and so recently lost: Ruth Hoffman (1917–2008), Mahin Hassibi (1937–2009), and Cynthia Colquitt-Craven (1941–2009). Vividly present by their absence, they infused my creative process with demands for clarity and truth.

My deepest appreciation to family and friends whose love, support, and just being there have been invaluable to me: Michael Dubow, for being a loving anchor and wise counsel; Diane Dubow, for gently accepting our differences; Jackie Rovine, for her ambition and psychological courage; Lisa Norton, for her empathy and reinforcement; Carolee Lucenti, for always laughing and forgiving; Linda Stein, for her vision and love; Vaughna Feary, for her wisdom and guidance; Andrea Peyser, for her wit and solidarity; Bill Baird, for sharing the front lines and lifelong support; and Stanley Rustin, for being the psychological bookends of my life—my trusted, loving witness.

I want to express my gratitude to my staff at Choices, the
doctors, nurses, and administration who have made it possible not only to do the work we do but also to survive and write about it. Thanks especially to Dr. Lorna Aguilos, for her loyalty, persistence, and belief in the mission; to Carmine Asparro, for being an ally, friend, and guru through the most difficult of times; and to Annette Farrell, for sharing the growth, struggles, and triumphs of Choices for so many years and coming back for more.

This book is also an offering to my patients. The work, the mission, and this book would never have been possible without the thousands and thousands of women and girls who have come to Choices through all the years in trust and hope. Their persistence and dignity in the face of obstacles, violence, and harassment are a testament to their courage. Quiet heroines all, it is a privilege and a gift to have spent my life serving them.

Much appreciation goes to all the writers, activists, and editors at
On the Issues Magazine
, who have assisted me in creating the voice of a visionary, progressive feminism—particularly my extraordinary editor Cindy Cooper who shares my passion for reproductive justice; Mark Phillips, for his creative and technological brilliance; Mary Lou Greenberg, for always being there with me on the front and written lines in the struggle for abortion rights; and to Vanessa Valenti, my social marketing guru.

Particular thanks to Jennifer Baumgardner, for being able to share the struggles of the movement, the joy of our children, and for creating the initial outline for this book. My first editor, reader, and longtime ally, she was instrumental in bringing this book to life.

Special thanks to my archivist Laura Micham at the Sallie Bingham Center for Women's History and Culture at Duke University, for her consistent public support of my work.
Her assistance with the research for this project has been invaluable.

My deep appreciation to Florence Howe for her pioneering vision in creating the Feminist Press. My book could not have found a better home. Many thanks to executive director Gloria Jacobs for strongly believing in this project and having the courage to use the A word. Much gratitude and admiration to my dear friend Blanche Wiesen Cook for her long friendship and early consistent support for this project.

This book would not be possible without the creative political intelligence, razor-sharp instincts, and feel for my particular literary rhythm of Feminist Press editorial director Amy Scholder—it has been a rare privilege working with her. Thanks also to the staff of the Feminist Press, Drew Stevens, Sophie Hagen, Jeanann Pannasch, and Elizabeth Koke for their assistance in this process.

And special, deep, and enduring appreciation to Theresa Noll, my editor who worked intimately with me for two years helping craft a form and narrative arc onto the whirlwind of my life. She was a gentle navigator, drawing me into my past and away from my own resistance.

And of course eternal gratitude to my daughter Sasharina —North Star of my autumn, who is forever challenging and delighting me.

And finally to Elizabeth Tudor (a.k.a. Queen Elizabeth I of England), for serving as my imaginary companion and role model for as long as I can remember.

1
Lizza, “The Abortion Capital of America.”

2
Carole Joffe's
Doctors of Conscience: The Struggle to Provide Abortion Before and After Roe v. Wade
is an excellent account of doctors who risked everything to help women in need.

3
See Hoffman, “Isn't It Enough To Make You Scream?”

4
Patient Power, which planted the seeds of the medical consumer movement, was far in advance of its time. It has taken years for the notion that patients have rights to take root in public consciousness, much less law, but recently that has begun to change. Second opinions have become generalized, alternative treatments are available, there are multiple patient advocacy groups, and doctors are rated on the Internet according to patient criteria. The New York State Department of Health has a set of guidelines called the “Patient Bill of Rights” requiring medical facilities to establish policies regarding the rights of patients and ensuring that all patients are informed of
their rights and responsibilities. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) requirements protect patient privacy. The Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Health Care Industry was formed in 1997 to “advise the president on changes occurring in the health care system and recommend measures as may be necessary to promote and assure health care quality and value, and protect consumers and workers in the health care system.” As part of its work, Clinton asked the Commission to draft a “consumer bill of rights” (see “Consumer Bill of Rights and Responsibilities”). And in June of 2010 the Obama administration released the “Fact Sheet: The Affordable Care Act's New Patient's Bill of Rights” to help Americans navigate their health care coverage (“The Obama Administration's New ‘Patient's Bill Of Rights'”). In the case of doctors being gods, one could definitely make the argument that this particular god is dead.

5
Not long after, Rosie Jimenez, a twenty-seven-year-old single mother too poor to pay for the procedure at a private clinic, had an illegal and unsafe abortion. She became the first of many women to die as a result of the Hyde Amendment. At a 1979 meeting held by abortion rights leaders Gloria Steinem, Karen Mulhauser of NARAL, and Uta Landy of NAF, Ellen Frankfort, coauthor of
Rosie: Investigation of a Wrongful Death,
announced the formation of the Rosie Jimenez Fund, the first to provide direct subsidy for women seeking abortions without sufficient funds to pay for one.