Gravedigger

This story is based on actual events. The picture of a little girl sitting on the court house steps has haunted me my entire life. The news paper article was about her mother who had just been convicted of man slaughter. A girl she had performed an abortion on had bleed to death. The article also stated her daughter, the little girl had been removed from the home. The little girl had shown the police where hundreds of aborted fetuses had been buried. The thought has haunted me for ever. The story was my way of purging it. I hope somehow the little girl reads this story and knows I have not forgotten her pain. If you are out there... my heart is still with you.
Beth


"Gravedigger, when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow, so that I can feel the rain?"
Dave Mathews

1.

“The world is full of broken people. Every lost soul we meet, can trace their fall back to one specific moment in their life. One bad decision can lead you down a path of self-destruction. All bad choices can be redeemed by one good choice. Your bad decision was spreading your legs for that boy. Now, I am your redemption. If you remember what I have told you, you will never regret coming to me for help.”

That was the speech Mama gave all her “girls”. Right before she told them to take off their panties and get on the table. Mama thought of her work as a mission from the Gods. It was her duty to help young Christian girls get rid of the consequences of their bad decisions. She took her work seriously. She considered herself a professional. When a girl was referred to her for help, she would serve them lunch with tea and talk about their plans for the future. If Mama did not think the girl was sure of her decision she would not help her. If the girl expressed no ambition for her future, Mama would recommend she marry the sorry sperm donor that did this to her because "without ambition, she was going to wind up with a bad marriage and too many kids to take care of anyway".

“No sense taking a risk for Kentucky’s next trailer park goddess.” Mama would say. If the
girl did not have a firm plan for the future, which included at least a masters degree, and three hundred dollars in cash, she would send her home and tell her to come back whenever she knew what she wanted to do with her life. The girls always came back. They would come back with plans to be doctors, and lawyers, and rocket scientists. Sometimes it would take them a few
months to come up with the plan and the cash but they always came back. Sometimes the babies in their bellies had grown so much they had to wear
big clothes to hide the condition but Mama did not care. She was doing a very special service for the young women of America.

“You remember these girls Beth. Your Mama made it possible for these girls to do something with their lives. Some day one of these girls may be the first woman president of the United States and it will be because we helped her overcome a bad decision.”

Most people in Casey County knew Mama and knew what we did. We often got girls from other counties who had been sent to us by friends of friends. We never used names. Nobody messed with Mama because she knew something about everybody. Mama had evev helped the Constables daughter. The constable brought her to us saying she had gotten too friendly with a boy from school. The
constable sat in our parlor with his pretty little girl who could not have been more than fourteen years old. She was a very pretty little girl. She wore a yellow sundress and had a matching ribbon in her hair. The baby in her belly was still too small to see under her sundress and I was glad for that. If the babies were big enough to see on the outside, it took Mama a long time to get them out and the girls would cry so much during the operation. The constable looked like a good Daddy to me. It was unusual for the girls to come to Mama with their Daddy. Most of the time they did not want their Daddy to know about the baby. Mama was very good at keeping secrets. The constable kept his arm around her while he told Mama the whole story. The girl never said a word. She just sat quietly with her hands folded in her lap. She sat up straight and looked forward. Mama's girls always seemed scared. Sometimes they would cry while they told Mama the story of how the baby got in them. Lori did not look scared at all. She did not look scared or sad or happy. In fact, she did not seem to feel anything at all. I thought Lori must have been a very brave girl to tell her Daddy about the baby. The constable did not seem to be mad about it at all.
“I have to talk to Lori alone officer. You step outside for a while.” His stiff blue uniform made a scratchy sound when he stood up. His shiney badge sparkled. He had a big gun strapped to his side. He squeezed little Lori’s hand and kissed her cheek. Lori just looked forward. Mama also asked me to leave the room while she talked to Lori. That was unusual. Mama usually liked me to stay while she talked to the girls but this time she told me to go out with the officer. After a while she called Constable Godfrey back in to the parlor. Lori must have had good ambitions for her life and her daddy had the money. I saw him give her the money. Mama gave him a brown paper bag.
She gave all the girls a brown paper bag the day before their operation. It was a special sea weed that Mama got every week in the mail. It made the operations easier to do. Mama said the sea weed made the womb soft so she did not have to work so hard to get the mistakes out.

“Have her put this as deep in her vagina as she can when she goes to bed tonight. Be back here
at two o’clock tomorrow. She will have some cramping, don’t worry, it’s just her cervix dilating so I can get to that mistake.”

Mama always called it a mistake but I saw what she pulled out of those scared young girls. Mama may have thought they were mistakes but I knew
they were babies. The next day officer Godfrey brought Lori back as instructed. Mama gave her
the usual speech then the frightened young girl pulled her white cotton panties from under her calico skirt and climbed onto our kitchen table. I was the only person allowed in the kitchen while Mama did an operation. I was Mama’s little helper. Mama had special tools she used to pull the babies out of their mommies. She boiled the tools before the girls came then laid them out on a clean white towel. If there was too much blood
while Mama worked, I would have to bring her some extra towels but my most important job was to take the babies outside before the girls could see them. Lori’s baby was not too big but Mama was able to get a good grip on her head. She came out really fast. Mama had given Lori some medicine so it would not hurt too bad when she pulled out the baby but I could tell that Lori still felt it when Mama pulled out her baby. She did not cry out like most of the girls but she was trembling. I saw her pale little hands grip the edge of the table as Mama pushed the big silver clamps into Lori’s womb. Lori’s baby was still moving when Mama pulled her out. Mama knew I did not like to bury babies if they were still moving so she took her big silver scissors from the clean white towel and quickly snipped off her tiny little head dropping Lori’s baby and her severed head into an iron pot she kept under the table. I hated when Mama would snip off their heads. I always wondered if the baby would have lived had Mama not decapitated them.

Mama motioned for me to take the pot. She did not like the girls to see what had been pulled from them so I had to move quickly.

“It just makes them feel bad to see what they did.” Mama would say. “These poor girls have
enough to worry about. They don’t need the memory of their bloody mistakes to keep them awake at night.” I grabbed the iron pot and quietly slipped out the back door.


2.
The night after I buried Lori’s baby, we had a big storm. There was a place on our farm where the soil was soft and sandy. That was where I buried most of the babies. I had learned that if I did not put them deep into the ground, animals would sometimes dig them up. Sometimes I would check the tiny graves the next day to find they had been scratched up and the babies were gone.

“Its just nature’s way.” Mama would say. “We all live off something else.” But the thought of a wild coyote chewing up the little purple babies was troubling to me so I tried to bury them as deep as I could. I had buried Lori’s baby on the hillside and tonight I had a different concern. The rain was pouring down hard. I could hear it pounding onto the window. The wind was blowing hard like it did when Dorothy’s house was whisked away in the Wizard OF OZ.

“What if the rain washes away the dirt?” I thought. “I will have to check the grave early to make sure the baby is still covered.” But that was no good. What if I did not wake early
enough and some wild dog found the decapitated baby before I could bury her in a better place. “I should start putting some stones on the graves so I won’t have to worry about storms anymore.” I thought. I tried to sleep but
I kept thinking of the tiny head being crushed in the jaws of a coyote or worse… what if my dog Charlie got to her. Charlie had dug up babies before and brought them back to the house. Mama would be very mad at Charlie of he brought one more dead baby onto the porch. I did not want Mama mad at Charlie again, she might snip his head off with the big silver scissors. I
had to check the grave. I had to make sure Lori’s baby was safe. Mama would be mad if she knew I went out in the rain so I had to be very quiet. I waited until I knew everyone was asleep. I slipped out of my bed and very quietly put my yellow slicker, hat, and galoshes on over my
pajamas. Mama would know if I had changed clothes at night. I would worry about my wet rain suit after I checked the graveyard. I had checked the
graveyard at night before so I knew where every squeaky board was in the house. Without making a sound I crept into the kitchen where I took the
flashlight from the drawer. I went into the basement and out the cellar door because I knew both the front door and the back door would creak if I opened them. The cellar door was noisy too but I knew Mama could not hear it from her room. I hoped the thunder would crash loud so Mama could not hear me. I worried that Mama may be looking out her window so I did not turn my flashlight on until I was out of sight of the house. Our farm was twenty acres so I kept my graveyard pretty far away. I walked for a long
time through the storm. It was springtime and the trees were just starting to bud. When the lightning of the spring storm flashed they looked like giant skeletons reaching out for me. It was cold and the wind seemed to push me away from the graves. Mama would be so mad if she knew I was out in this storm but I had to check the grave. I had to know the baby was safe.

I know little girls who would be afraid of silly things like ghosts. They would think I was a very brave girl because I was not afraid to be in the graveyard at night. But I knew it was just silly to be afraid of the dead babies. When I was very little I thought they might become ghosts after they got buried. It troubled me and made it hard for me to sleep at night. One day when Mama was busy with Daddy I dug up some of the babies that had been buried for a long time. I had to know if they had become ghosts and if they were ghosts, would they hurt me or be my friends. They would get stinky and their skin would peel away. One baby I dug up was nothing but a pile of tiny bones. I even took her little head out and played with it for a while. Dead babies change after they are buried... but I never saw one turn into a ghost. And even if they did turn into ghosts, I know they would not hurt me. I took good care of them. They might even like me and want to play with me. But no baby ghosts ever came out to play with me. As long as the animals left them alone, they stayed right where I put them.

Finally I reached the graveyard. My flashlight was dim and gave little help to find the tiny grave in the storm. Finally I found the place where I had buried Lori’s baby. As I feared, the torrents of rain had washed away the soil. The tiny baby lay limp and black in the cold rain. I had not thought to bring my shovel. I reached into the muddy soil and picked up Lori’s
baby. Her tiny head in one hand, her body in the other, I took her to the top of the hill where I had buried many other babies. The soil was soft
from the rain. I gently lay the tiny body parts on a patch of green clover and with my bare hands I dug the grave as deep as I could. When I had dug as far as I could reach, I gently placed Lori's baby in her new grave. I put her little head where it should have been attached and pushed it as hard as I could into her jagged scissor chopped neck. I covered her open eyes with some fresh green clover. I usually wrapped the babies open eyes with tissue so the soil
would not get in but that night I had not brought any tissue so the clover would have to do. The rain slowed down to a sprinkle as I mounded the
grave. The sun was going to be up soon so I had to work quickly. Mama got up shortly after sunrise. I finished the grave and covered it with stones. I vowed that from then on I would cover all the baby graves with stones so the wind and rain could not uncover them. It would be safer
that way. "Why is it so hard to keep things buried?" I thought. I had seen big graveyards in town. The places where big people were buried never seemed to get dug up or washed away. Why was my graveyard to hard to keep safe?

Luck was with me that night. I got home in time to wash all the mud from my hands. I stood shivering in the cold basement drying my rain suit with an old towel that I knew Mama would not notice. But my pajamas had gotten wet. How could I hide that from her? I would tell her I wet my bed. It was a lie and Mama hated liars. But she hated cowards more and only a coward would be afraid of loosing a mistake.
"I am a very smart five-year-old girl." I thought. Mama would have been proud that I made this plan. Too bad I could not tell her. In my wet pajamas, I went back to my room, got into my bed and urinated. It was very hard to deliberately pee on myself but I knew the kind of trouble I might be in if Mama knew I had gone
out in the storm. The punishment for wetting the bed would be much less and may even be considered an accident. If she thought I went out in the storm at night she would call me silly and stupid for worrying about a dead mistake. She might even snip off my head with her scissors. After I urinated on my bed, I went to the laundry room where I washed out my muddy, pee smelling pajamas. I took a long hot bath, scrubbed all the mud from under my fingernails, then washed out the tub. I had covered everything. Mama would never know I went out in the storm.

Mama believed my story. She was even a little proud that I had been brave enough to tell her the truth and smart enough to wash out my clothes. She helped me turn my mattress and change my sheets. I still got punished. I had to do all the laundry for the family that week, and I was not allowed to drink anything after five o’clock but at least I still had my head and Lori’s baby was safe.

3.
The seasons changed. Summer was good. I did not worry too much about the babies in the summer. A warm green blanket of grass covered the graveyard to keep the babies warm. I had learned to dig up the patch of grass and put it back on the grave just like the big gravediggers did in the big people graveyards. Mama did not want any special stones to cover the graves. She wanted the graveyard to look like the rest of the land. She did not care that I put stones on the graves as long as they did not look like graves. One time I took some colored chalk and drew a flower on a stone. I set the decorated stone at the head of the grave. I thought it looked pretty. Mama said I was silly to do it and made me take down the gravestone.
She said "Gravestones are for remembering people. Nobody wants to remember these mistakes." But I remembered them all. I wished I did not but I could not forget.

4.
Soon it was Autumn and the leaves that were coming to life when I buried Lori’s baby were turning orange and red. Soon they would fall from the trees and the graves would have a warm, colorful blanket. I liked to think the leaves would keep the babies warm. But after Autumn came the winter. Winter was hard. The ground got so hard when it was cold. I had to work very hard to make my graves deep enough. Sometimes the ground would be so hard I could not get the graves very deep so I had to use more stones than usual to keep the soil from washing away. The animals also seemed hungrier in the winter. They would dig much deeper to feast on a baby. I had used all the stones in my graveyard so I used my little red wagon to carry stones from other parts of the farm. My graveyard was getting bigger. To the unknowing looker, it just seemed like a very rocky peice of land. I worried about what I would do when I had used all the stones on our farm to cover the graves.

"I will have to ask Daddy to bring some more stones in his truck." I thought "But for now I can manage with my wagon." There was too much to worry about in the winter. I hated when snow would fall. I worried the babies would be too cold. Mama very rarely threw out anything. But if she threw away any old clothes or blankets I would steal them from the trash at night. I tried to wrap the babies in something warm before I put them into the ground. I knew it was safe to steal from the trash. Daddy always burned the trash on Sundays and Daddy would not notice that something was missing. Mama would have noticed... but Mama never messed with the trash once we took it to the burning spot. Mama would have thought I was silly to wrap up the babies. I never wanted Mama to think bad things about me. I hated the way she looked at me when she thought I was being silly.


5.
I had put many babies in the ground since the day I had buried Lori’s baby. One day in the fall, Mama did not notice that one of the mistakes was still moving. I did not say anything to her and I acted like nothing had happened when I saw the little blue baby twitching in the iron pot. I had thought about this for a long time. I knew one day Mama would be to busy with the girls womb to notice a baby was still moving. I did not want Mama to chop off her head. I hated when Mama would chop off their heads. I was going to keep this baby for myself. She was not going into the graveyard with the others. Mama motioned for me to take the pot. I grabbed it up and slipped out the back door as I had always done. Instead of going to the graveyard, I took the pot with the tiny twitching baby through the same cellar doors I had used to escape into the storm the night I buried Lori’s baby. I knew Mama would be busy for a while with the girl. She would let her lie on the table for a while. She would put a clean pad into her panties then help her get up. They would sit in the parlor for a while drinking tea, tallking about the ambitious plan for the future. Mama would tell her to expect heavy bleeding and cramping. She would tell her to bind her breasts up tight if they got milk. Mama would warn her not to open her legs for boys during certain times of the month. Mama had a calendar she used to teach the girls how to open their legs for boys without making a baby. Mama spent a lot of time with the girls after an operation so in knew I had plenty of time.

I took the baby into the basement. The baby was big for the pot but much smaller than my sisters had been when they came home. I held her gently in my hands. She reminded me of a dolly I had seen in a magazine one time. Her head was bigger than the rest of her body, the size of a small green apple. Her tiny fingers and toes were webbed together. Her hands were too small to grasp my finger. Her giant black eyes seemed to be to big for her head. I held her up to my face and kissed her gently on the cheek. Mama had pulled her out by the head. The clampers
had grabbed onto her eyes and the eyelids had been pulled off. Her eyes bulging and bleeding. I wrapped tissue around the tiny head to
cover her eyes. “She may be blinded”. I thought. I had seen blind people before. They were OK. I could read stories to her. I could sing to her. She would know I loved her even though she was blind. She would know I wanted her even if her mommy thought she was a mistake. After dressing her torn eyes, I wrapped her in a little pink blanket that I had hidden in the basement. I knew eventually Mama would slip up and I would be able to keep a baby for myself. The blanket was old but I made sure it was clean. I had also hidden a shoebox to use as her cradle. She was very cold. I wrapped her tightly in the blanket then held her close to my body to get her warm. I cuddled her and stroked her tiny head "I will be your mommy". I said. She did not move. She was a very quiet; very still baby… a good baby.
I sat in the basement with her as long as I could without making Mama suspicious. Then I put her into the shoebox cradle and crept quietly into
my room. She still had not moved or made a noise. “What a good baby.” I thought. "I will be easy to hide her from Mama if she is quiet."

That night we had dinner as usual. Mama said the prayer. She thanked the gods for all they had given our family, for health and wealth. She made a special request for the gods to help her daughters make good decisions for their future. After dinner we took turns reading out loud while Mama worked on her needle-point tapestry. Mama hated Television. Daddy liked it so he go to a friends house at night to watch TV. MY sister had asked once if we could have a television. But Mama said it would make us stupid and there were enough stupid girls in the world already.

Then finally it was bedtime. I took my bath, kissed Mama goodnight, then hurried to my room to care for my baby. She lay quietly in her shoebox cradle, just as I had left her. She was very cold now. She was blue when she came out of her mommy but now she was a deep dark purple, like the color of a bad bruise. The bandages around her torn eyes were wet so I changed them. I wrapped her tightly in her little blanket and cuddled
her all night. She was so cold. I know I had seen her moving in the pot. I knew she was alive when I took her out of the kitchen but now I could not
tell if she was breathing. Sometimes I thought I saw her chest move but I could not be sure. Maybe she was just breathing very shallow. How could I
be sure she was alive? How could I know she was dead? I had to believe she was alive. I held her close to me all night. She never moved, never made a noise. She was so cold, so purple. How could I know?

I slept with my baby for three nights. Then she started to smell bad. I knew I had to do something. I had to find a place to keep her
shoebox cradle where Mama could not smell her. While Mama took her nap that day, I moved my baby to the basement. “Don’t be scared.” I told her. “I will visit you as often as I can. I will take you to bed with me every night. You only have to be alone during the day time.” I kept her in the basement for a few more days but the smell got really bad. She grew hard and black. There was a smelly black juice coming from her bottom. It smelled like the babies Charlie had brought onto the porch. Was my baby dead? How could I know? know she was moving when she came from her mommy but when had she stopped moving? Had I killed her?

I wrapped her tightly in her pink blanket and carried her to the graveyard. Even though the north wind had blown the cold air in, I took her out of the blanket. I wanted her to feel
the cold air. Maybe if she got really cold she would cry or move. I lay her on the cold ground. Her hard black body did not move. I started to cry. “If you don’t move right now, I will put you into the ground with the others. I swear I will.” I knelt over her and screamed as loud as I could. "Wake up! Wake up! You are being a silly baby... a defiant baby!" She lay motionless in the soil. I picked her up with one hand and shook her as hard as I could. “Wake up or I will bury you with the others!” Her tiny black head bobbed back and forth in my hand. The smelly black juice now dripped from her mouth onto my hand. I threw her down as hard as I could then threw myself
to the ground where I lay weeping until the sun started to set.

It was very late when I got home that night. Mama was very mad and I had to spend the night in the closet for being a defiant little girl. I had buried my baby that night. I wrapped her in her pink blanket that I had stolen from the trash, covered her big black eyes with clean white tissue, put her into her shoebox cradle, then put her into her grave. I moved very slow and sang to her while I covered her with dirt. "Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mama's gonna buy you a mockin-bird."

As I placed the last stone on her tiny grave I thought "Its better this way. I can keep you safe here. You will be warm. Mama will never bother you here." I sat on her grave for a long time. It had gotten dark some time ago. I don't know wht time it was but I knew Mama would be very mad when I got home.

I never told Mama why I was late that night. WHen I got home she grabbed me up by my dress.

"Where have you been?" she screamed "You know better than to make me worry." I could not speak. I opened my mouth to tell her I had been with the babies but nothing would come out. She shook me hard. "Where have you been?" I wanted to answer but the words would just not come out. Mama whipped me with the strap that night. But it did not hurt. I did not cry so she hit me harder and faster than she normally did. I wanted to cry so Mama would know I was learning my lesson about being a stupid girl but I could not. I had left all my tears at the graveyard. The strap felt bad on my bare skin but nothing hurt as bad a burying my baby. I did not think I would ever cry again. I had to stay in the closet that night because I was being a "defiant little girl." Mama hated defiant girls.
6.
Through the winter, many girls came. The ground became hard from the cold but still I dug the graves as far as I could reach. Eventually I forgot which grave held my baby. They all looked the same. In the spring a sheriff came and took Mama away. Some men in suits asked me where the babies were. I took then to the soft sandy soil that ws now covered with stones.

"Where are they?" a man asked. I stared out at the stone covered land.

"There everywhere" I said.

I went to live with my grandparents that spring. Shortly after I started the second grade, Mama came home. We all moved to California. A new law was passed and doctors were allowed to take babies out of their mommies in the hospital so
Mama had to get a new job. Somebody else had to dig the graves.