I attended the Boston vigil for Dr. Tiller this evening, and I'm trying to find a unifying thread that sums it up. As someone who didn't know Dr. Tiller, is not an activist (as opposed to, I don't know, a philosophize-ivist), and had never before entered the church at which the event took place, I don't really feel qualified to give any assessment. But I'll try.

The vigil was both unsatisfying and beautiful. It was unsatisfying in that there is nothing that can make Dr. Tiller's death less horrific -- not leaning on shoulders, not lighting candles. His death and his bravery feel like gnawing things inside of me, urging me out of my own head and into the world. The multitude of little flames were not able to numb that.

But it was beautiful to be surrounded by others who can sense the precise weight and shape of this loss. I overheard one woman, as she held the hands of both her children, tell someone that she'd driven four hours to be there. I saw tear-trails on cheeks.

I heard a woman speak who experienced a coat hanger abortion before Roe v. Wade. I am nineteen. Hearing this woman's words made something real for me that had never been more than mythic before. She told of her 105 degree fever, of the fact that she'd been too ashamed to go to a doctor for months after. She told of how, when she finally did, he asked her, "What did you do to yourself?" in disgust.

A succession of people went up to speak -- to share their experiences of Dr. Tiller, abortion, or even -- from one woman -- regrets over having once been "pro-life". Each person closed his or her story by making a promise, before the audience or God or both, to be the change they wished to see. People promised to escort abortion doctors and patients; to trust women; to make the issue human to those around them by being honest about their own abortions. Promises to be our better selves sprouted everywhere.

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