Carolyn Zolbe

Zolbe, 74, is out in front of Planned Parenthood on 16th Street NW. Her usual schedule is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 2:30 p.m.-4 p.m. Today she’s here to back up Dick Retta.

She holds a sign that says “SMILE YOUR MOM CHOSE LIFE” on one side and “ABORTION STOPS A BEATING HEART” on the other. Another sign has a photo of a group of women who regret their abortions. “We all regret things we’ve done,” says Zolbe. Sticking out of her purse is a laminated card with the music and words to “Salve Regina.”

Zolbe, a former Arlington County Public Schools teacher, started coming to the Planned Parenthood in D.C. in 2007, after that year’s 40 Days for Life campaign. She met Retta, who was a crozier in a procession from St. Matthews down to the Planned Parenthood building. She was reading the pope’s Jesus of Nazareth then and came down every day after her reading time.

“I don’t say I protest,” she says. “I say I pray at Planned Parenthood.”

She asks my mother’s name. It’s Janet. “I believe in truth and joy,” Zolbe tells me. “I see joy on your face.” Well, we were talking about my mom.

Carolyn Zolbe, marcher in the March for Life and Arlington resident, thinks this about President Barack Obama: “I think he’s a child of God.”

Zolbe’s daughter, Grace Doherty, isn’t quite as neutral in her assessment:

“If you don’t view the value of life, how could your other views have any quality.” Zolbe, who wears a winning smile to accompany her mom-thanking sign, tells her daughter to pirouette for the camera: Doherty, for her part, wears a string of bloody baby heads dangling down her back, with a sign that says, “Some choice.”

Having noted that I am the daughter of someone, Zolbe asked for my mother’s name so that she could pray for my mother, “because she chose life.”