Maybe it made a difference

I went over to the clinic to pray yesterday and I brought Mary Rose (4months) with me because it was a beautiful day. When I got there a young man was standing and talking with all of the ladies I usually pray with. I assumed he was someone's son since most of the ladies are about the right age to have been his mother. I said hello and then he asked if he could take a picture of the baby. I figured he was documenting the occasion out here with his mother (still didn't know which one it was) so I said yes. He took the picture with his phone, which I remember briefly thinking was an odd tool to use to take photos for a memory book. Then I went over to another group of ladies and started praying the Rosary with them. The young man hung around for a long time then suddenly he jumped in his car and left. After awhile he came back and hung around some more, and then he left again. So I asked the woman next to me, who is that guy? And I was surprised by the answer.

He had followed his girlfriend down from Pennsylvania. Her mother and her other boyfriend were bringing her here to have an abortion. It's unclear which boyfriend is the father. Her mother has brought her to another state to have this abortion because her father is a big wig and is important in their community and this would be embarrassing. I'm thinking, isn't he already embarrassed by a daughter promiscuous enough to not even be sure who has fathered her baby? But, anyway, this young man doesn't want her to have the abortion. He doesn't care who the father is, he wants her to keep it and he wants to help her. He has been texting her all morning. No one is sure what is going on. The whole thing is taking too long; she's been in there, texting back and forth with him, for about 2 hours. He thinks he sees a great opportunity when I show up with my baby and he takes a picture and sends it to her. See, this is what you would be killing... He drives up closer to the clinic to see if he can see in and figure out what's happening In the end she tells him to meet her at the hospital up the street. It's about 2 blocks away. He looks hopeful and drives off.

It doesn't make sense to us. Why would she go to the hospital? Her message didn't tell him there was an emergency and we can't figure what else would send her there. I think maybe she told him to go there to get him away from the clinic. Maybe her mother made her get rid of him. There's no way to know. We have no idea what her car looks like, so we can't tell if she's left or not. We can't find out the end of the story. I want to think that she finally asserts herself against the other boyfriend and her mother, and that she runs off to find the man who cared enough to drive for two hours to save her baby's life. I want to imagine that she saw that picture of my baby and thought, I can't do this. But I'll never know. I'm just praying that it made a difference.