Red Envelopes

Joel noticed this morning, that on the organ, was Sarah's stack of about 20 red envelopes for the pro-life campaign. He came into the kitchen to tell me.

"That's weird, Mom, "he said, "Out in the living room is a bunch of mail for Barack Obama. All the envelopes are red."

"Oh, yeah, they're to try to get the President to change his mind about abortion."

"Abortion? What's that?" Joel asked.

At the tender age of seven, he needed a soft but direct answer.

"It's killing a baby before it's born."

"But why would someone do that?"

"Different reasons, but mainly because a mother doesn't want the responsibility of her child."

He got quiet, looked tenderly up at me as I unloaded the dishwasher, then said, "But you have responsibility of me, right, Mom?"

"Right, honey," I said, stopping to hug him. "I wanted you so much I could hardly wait to have the responsibility of you."