sounding board

2005-11-04 - 4:29 p.m.

An entry by purplebanana got me to thinking. About lots of things, really, but here's one in particular.

Thinking of young people and impending life and hard choices, impossible choices.

It was back in high school, junior year. My best friend and I had a class together in which he sat in the desk right behind me. We'd arrive a few minutes before class started and I'd twist around in my seat so we could have a good catchup on the minutae of our day or talk through problems. He got me through a lot of boy trouble and I got him through his girl troubles and it was generally just a very grounding few minutes to know there in the middle of the day that I'd get to connect with him, however briefly.

One day a girl in the back of the row dropped a note onto my desk on her way out of class. I didn't know her. I only knew that she seemed to be out of class as much as she was in and she had a way of disappearing into her surroundings even when she was there. It seemed like she'd worked hard to fade out of sight.

When I read her note, I was floored. She'd discovered she was pregnant, by a relative. Her home life was in pretty dire circumstances, she'd been in and out of mental health facilities and was on meds. She was terrified. She had to decide whether she would have the baby or have an abortion, and how she would handle it in either case.

She didn't have anyone to talk to and said she just needed a sounding board. From listening to my friend and I in our chats at the beginning of class, she'd decided she wanted me to be that objective sounding board.

We spent the week having chats that gave me an insight into a world I hadn't even imagined. We sat on the hill, knees drawn up to our chins, hands picking aimlessly through the blades of grass, trying to picture the possibilities before us.

I told her from the beginning I would not offer any judgements or opinions, that she'd have to do all the deciding, but that I would listen to anything she needed to say. We talked. We cried. We questioned and thought.

I wonder now if she ever got out of that family, built a life on her own, if there has been or ever will be another baby inside her that she could hold onto and let thrive.

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Pretend it's 10th grade. Leave me a note.

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