F.

Scott Fitzgerald said that "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed

ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." ​What does it mean to

live and think in a state of irresolution?

A Girl Named Libby

If I close my eyes, I can still see her disfigured shape. Some limbs were fragile; like if

you touched them they’d shatter into millions of cells, back to where they began. Others were

bloated; she was a balloon, so tight that I didn’t dare touch her, lest she pop. She had always

been a very slim girl, so her face— distended, but gaunt— was hardly recognizable. Like a

corpse that had been pulled out of the river, except she wasn’t dead. I remember sitting next to

her; I was in such denial; I thought, in my naive little brain, that she would get better. And I still

thought so while I sat, weeping, at her funeral.

Libby wasn’t blood; she was closer than that. There are pictures of us— me, just a baby,

and her, a young teenager. Her family practically raised me— a child with a working mother and

a father who drank and screamed his problems away. With Libby, I felt safe. She taught me how

to read, how to play, and how to be a kid. Spunky, and headstrong, she taught me how to be seen

in a life where all I wanted was to be invisible.

She was 27 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. It might have been a simple

process, if it weren’t for the fact that she was pregnant with her second child. The doctors begged

her to abort the fetus, but stubborn Libby wouldn’t listen. She was not willing to end the life of
her unborn child in order to increase her own chances of living.​ ​She believed that the fetus inside

her was not simply an extension of her body, but a life in and of itself. Not a day goes by where I

don’t marvel at her courage and strength. Her sacrifice was so pure— illuminating the intrinsic

value of an unborn life.

And yet when I think of the women of the world— stifled by society, and oppressed by

men, I am invigorated with the truth that each one deserves the right to autonomy over her own

body. A person can not feel what another feels, nor see what another sees, so it is completely

illogical to place mandates upon the bodies of the entire female population. A small girl in India

was raped by her uncle and denied an abortion just this year. When I learned of this, my heart

sunk; the adrenaline coursing through my veins gave way to a sort of red hue before my eyes,

and the pounding in my chest rang in my ears. The injustice that this girl faced is completely,

morally wrong. I am enraged by the power that conservative values have over women who wish

to act on their right to use birth control, obtain an abortion, or have pre-marital sex, because a

woman’s body is her own, despite what one’s religious doctrine may proclaim.

My strong pro-choice convictions are, perhaps, the antithesis of Libby’s legacy that I

revere, yet neither reasoning overpowers the other in my mind.

My relationship with Libby allowed me to thrive, and have my eyes opened to a side of

the world that I am not naturally inclined to acknowledge. The laughter, the learning, the tears,

and the mess— I wouldn’t change a thing. Her life is still just as vibrant today as it was two

years ago, and that vibrance has allowed me to consider the many contradicting factors of which

life is comprised. It can be difficult, and confusing, to carry such differing ideals, but the truth is,

that nothing is truly black or white. I live in a state of grey— not in a vapid, or subdued way, but
in an enlightened one. I understand and relate to both sides of the spectrum, and I realize that

neither ideal is perfect; I know that to encamp upon a set of views is to ignore the truths of

others. And I owe this all to a girl named Libby.