by Saundra Smokes

About the author: Saundra Smokes writes for the Syracuse Herald-Journal.

When I heard the news that one of my favorite teen-agers was pregnant, I got sick to my stomach.

For days, I turned the thing over in my head. The girl was book- and life- smart. At times, she seemed older and wiser, deeper than some of her peers.

Ijust knew she would end up at the head of line, leading her classmates in some kind of youth revolution that would benefit her school, her community, her generation. But she was pregnant and I knew she knew better.

What Might Have Been

Iheard her speak it from her own lips that she had plans for the future and they didn’t include being a teen-age mother.

Now she was on...