One night after a stressful week of work, I called home. I can’t remember now what had me so worked up but I’ll never forget what my parents told me. 

“Your job is like a bowl of water – you can put your hand in it and splash around – but at the end of it all, it’ll be a bowl of water with or without you.” 

As someone who feels called to create change, I struggle with this concept and have to constantly remind myself there’s a vast difference between my job and my work. But I don’t think I really understood what they were saying until now. 

After 25 years my mom was laid off. A 10 minute meeting and everything she had worked for was over. Evaporated as quickly as an office could be cleaned out and a computer wiped. She was hurt and scared and likely embarrassed. But like always, my mom handled it with a stoic grace our family has come to rely on. 

When I got the call, it hit me like a punch in the gut. 

I am probably equal parts my parents. My Dad is evident as I process this through writing. But my spirit, the kind that allows me to take up space in my career – that’s from my Mom. She wasn’t born in the generation of women being told they could do anything. But after she put my Dad through college and my sister and I through diapers – she found an opportunity to blaze a new trail for herself. And she took it. 

She built a business and a brand, a name and an expertise that people grew to trust. All of those years she wasn’t just getting by, she was paying attention. She was building knowledge that she’ll never have the piece of paper to prove, but anyone who knows her would never question. 

And now it’s gone. 

The hardest part of having something taken away is the helplessness it leaves in its wake. The lack of agency you knew was always there blind sides you. A career, that should have ended with a glittering send off of her choosing, was ripped away. But another lesson my parents have always taught us, not through words but through action, is living. My parents live their life. That may seem obvious but so many of us are going through the motions while they’re carrying around sparklers.

My mom was excellent at her job. But she is even better at being “Ne” to her grandsons, doctor to her nieces and nephews, wife, sister, friend. She’s the kind of mom you always call. Her legacy has roots. 

So as I search for the meaning in all of this, one thing became clear – it doesn’t matter how valuable you are, in business, you’re always disposable. So don’t forget to live. Don’t forget to pour as much into the people around you as you do to a job that will no doubt have an end. 

We walked.

My permit was crisp and new in the drawer at home but I couldn’t drive without my Mom or Dad in the car. So we walked.

It was still warm enough out where we didn’t notice the weather. We took the path through the park and up the back alley behind the grocery store – if we walked along the streets it would have been inevitable someone in my family would have seen us.

I was the only one who knew. We had taken three tests in the furthest bathroom near the math wing to be sure. All three – plus sign. She ran her fingers along the white scar on the inside of her wrist and I stared at the three pink applicators lined up next each other on tile floor; neither of us cried. Somehow we instinctively knew, even without having the wisdom of age, that on the list of things she had to worry about this one would be near the bottom.

She never asked me to go with her and neither of us actually ever said out loud where we were going. The number to book the appointment was on a flier we had picked up at Farmers Market weeks before. A family friend was handing them out along the street and she tucked it in the back pocket of her cut off shorts as we walked away. I called to book the appointment.

The woman who greeted us was kind, calm and clear in her directions. She explained all of the options and left us for a few minutes before they began. It was the safest she said she had felt in weeks. Sitting there in that room, with people who wanted to help. I watched her sit on the table, the tissue paper lining crinkling as she rocked gently back and forth, her bruised knees pulled into her chest.

I sat in the waiting room.

Then we walked back.

I never asked her if it was his. She never liked talking about her Dad anyway. In the end, I suppose it didn’t matter. We were 15 and my biggest worry was the varsity basketball team. Her brown eyes held more sadness than my heart knew existed. It was a battle for her each day to get herself from sunrise to sun fall. When she came over on weeknights, which wasn’t allowed at our house, quiet and withdrawn, no one ever said anything. My mom set out an extra plate for dinner and she would curl up in the green leather recliner in our living room and sleep.

When I look back on that day, even pro choice feels like it falls short. Nothing about what happened felt anything like agency or a process in decision making. It felt like survival. Maybe for some people it’s easier to list off options, alternate paths or even flaunt the idea of heartbeat. And that is one thing I won’t forget – the feel of her pulse against mine as we held hands and stepped through the door.

Now imagine if there was no place to go.

• Donate to the Yellowhammer Fund—it provides funding for anyone seeking care at one of Alabama’s three abortion clinics → https://yellowhammerfund.org/

• Donate to the National Network of Abortion Funds—a network of groups that help fight financial and logistical barriers to abortion access nationwide → go.crooked.com/NNAF

• Donate to/volunteer with Planned Parenthood—walk people who are seeking health care past protestors and into clinics → go.crooked.com/clinicvolunteer

• Support the ACLU—it has a history of defeating Alabama in cases like this → go.crooked.com/ACLUAlabama  

• Register to vote, and don’t just vote for president—vote the lawmakers who pass laws like this out of office, and fight the gerrymandered maps that have allowed many of them to win their races unfairly  → votesaveamerica.com

*Resources from Pod Save America

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton