At the Vote Yes For Life headquarters in Sioux Falls, a little boy named Caleb helped me bundle flyers...for hours. He was there before me, and he waved goodbye as I was leaving. My help was a drop in the bucket compared to him.
He helped until we were finished, and he did it gladly. He smiled and made it a competitive sport to see who could finish 25 flyers first. With all my try, he still won 8 out of 10 times. :) He added spirit to my efficiency when he made a simple remark, "Just think, we've got thousands of flyers here, and even if we just change one persons mind, that's one more baby that we might have saved." It was so clear to him. Matter of fact. Simple Truth.
His daddy was just within earshot, manning the phones, running down an endless list of South Dakotans, just with the hope of spreading that simple truth. I was proud of that man, a stranger I've never met, and may never meet again.
Every time someone rang a bell, it was a sign to the volunteers that there was another vote for life. And children, some not older than 3, would then belt out their best whoops and hollers and hooray's with every ring...out of
pure joy.
Mothers of all ages were bringing in food for those hungry souls, cooking up a storm of soups and sandwiches, and I listened as a young lady told my son she'd flown from the Carolinas to help, and another group of kids just out of high school had driven across the country to offer themselves up, to be plugged in and used wherever the need may be.
A fresh group of volunteers had just arrived when I walked in the doors, Youth With A Mission. And what a mission they'd undertaken!
Over against the wall a woman was taping up little snippets of positive news articles, in every nook and cranny, an encouraging soul.
My 7 year old boy stood, reeling, with a look of anguish on his face, when he realized that the speckly-patterned trim taped all around the walls were actually the footprints representing the number of babies who'd been lost to abortion in our state alone... there were 33,000 of them.
"Thirty-three
thousand..." he whispered, his ability to speak trailing off...I watched him as he tried to concieve that number. My little boy, who is such a whiz at math...
There were kids of all ages, running and playing, teenagers calling on the phones, even a huge sign on the wall with thousands of signatures, from a church in Edmond, Oklahoma. I heard someone say, "If only kids could vote, this would be a victory, hands down, because they all get it."
The next day I got to witness something that brought tears to my eyes.
My little girl, helping to canvas our little town with those same flyers.
Walking those many streets with the same smile and sweet nature as the little boy who'd helped me the night before.
She'd been helping her mommy, she said, telling people who didn't know that we shouldn't hurt babies.
It wasn't about a choice, or politics, or anything else. To that little girl it was just that simple. We shouldn't be hurting them.
We'd began just after lunch, and now the sun was setting, and yet there she was smiling and full of joy. Tired, but happy, because at 3 years old this little one knew that it was worth it. That what she did...
mattered. She was here, with us. Walking. Talking. Smiling. Breathing. Her heart was beating heavy, because while my feet were dragging, this little one was still
running to every door!
Just think how many little boys and girls didn't get the chance to run. I wonder how many of them would be racing to the doors of every home in America, if they'd just been given the chance.
Life does matter and it is our job to stand up for these little ones, for the ones who can't stand up for themselves. They can't do it themselves, not yet, not like these children who could, the ones who walked the streets.
To me I think it's just as simple. They say that the baby isn't alive, then why do we have to kill it? That boy or girl has done nothing to deserve death. If we just leave them alone, they grow, they live. They walk, they talk, they cry, they giggle, they love, they smile...they live. So let them live.
Please Vote Yes For Life tomorrow. You mattered.
So do they.
P.S.
The night before the vote, I sat at a table with volunteers, trying to call people to talk about how important this law really is, the snowflake that could be the beginning of the avalanche... a woman next to me was there too. She didn't know how to begin and neither did I. Neither of us were any good on the phone, and we were, well, frankly, paralyzed... that was until this little boy walked up with his daddy.
"My son's been dying to get on the phones and talk to people. How about he just pushes the numbers for you, and you can take it from there?"
"Uhhhh....okay... Sure." The woman said.
"Are you ready?"
"....I guess so."
Thanks for helping us get over our own fears, Caleb...
:)
