One Moment in Time

I remember this one moment in time as if it occurred only yesterday ...

My mom had just picked me up from high school.  As she drove what turned out to be the longest drive home ever from high school, I noticed that she was suspiciously quiet.  I could tell that she was deep in thought, but I had the distinct feeling that she might share those deep thoughts with me.

She kept looking at me with those distinctively special "mom eyes."  You know - the mother's eyes that are so intensely loving, yet so intensely concerned at the same time.

I sensed that she must have something terribly important to tell me.  It quickly became obvious to me that, at any moment, whatever was on her mind would be verbally passed along to me.  She had something to say, something to tell me, but she just wasn't quite sure where to begin.  I thought, "Did somebody Die?"

As we were driving down the road, having already turned onto the quaint, midwestern street where we lived, my mom (who had taken me some days or weeks earlier to the family doctor for a pregnancy test - because moms really do seem to have a kind of sixth sense, especially about their own offspring) decided to just come out and say what I'm sure had been weighing quite heavily on her mind all day so far.

Ever so gently, compassionately, and quietly, but matter-of-factly, she put her precious hand in mine and said, "Lori, you're pregnant."

My heart sank to my stomach.  Then, my stomach made its way up to my throat.

My once rosy cheeks now lacked of any color at all. 

My insuppressible tears flooded my cheeks, drenched my clothes, and sprinkled onto my high school books.

I glanced over at my mom again.

Her "mom eyes" were bigger-than-life filled with the compassion that only a mom can have for her child.  In my case, a child having a child - her baby having a baby.

After swallowing the big lump in my throat (it took several attempts), I quietly asked my mom to "just drive around the block."

I wasn't ready to go into the house yet.

I wasn't ready to go on with the rest of the afternoon.

Quite frankly, I wasn't ready for anything.

And, I sure wasn't ready to be a mommy.  Not me.  Not at sixteen!

(... from my new book:  Pregnant at 16)