Blog on the Lillypad
Wednesday, March 24, 2004
 | Discussion at a Table
As most of my readers know, I have chronic back pain and treat it in a drug-free way. While I endorse just about anything that puts off the use of powerful pharmaceuticals, getting into alternative therapies is a mixed bag. There's a lot of nonsense out there that costs a lot of money and accomplishes nothing. And there are well meaning people out there who believe some of the goofiest things I've ever heard (and you're getting this from a Christian Fundamentalist who studies astrology!) |
However, after investigating some of the therapies offered at the West Mill Wellness Spa in Raleigh, I decided sign up for a few sessions. My therapist is a woman, 60 years old who looks about 40, born in Croatia (formerly part of Yugoslavia), who has embraced just about every New Age belief I've ever heard of, and a few I have not.
However, she has a great respect for me and my beliefs. The fact that I have remained celibate all my life amazes her. (She has to ask about sexually transmitted diseases, so my assurances that I don't have any STDs are rock-solid.)
As I was getting on the table to start the session, she made sure I was very well covered, and I thanked her. "I'm probably very modest," I told her.
"Yes," she said in her Eastern European accent. "But I think that's wonderful, baby girl! I have a great respect for women who can live without pleasure." (All this time tucking me in.)
"Uh, well, it's not that---"
"You see, I am celibate these past 11 years," she adds. "Very difficult, but so much better not to play with men---"
"Uh, yes, if you put it that way----"
She switched topics as we went back to health issues and matters of chronic pain. Once we got started, there was a long interval where she was simply sitting alongside me, so I asked her about what is was like to grow up in Yugoslavia.
"We had no car when I grow up," she said. "No electricity. No running vater. I see radio for first time in 1957, but no electricty to play radio." (She would have been 13.)
"Were you considered poor?" I asked.
She shook her head. "We had very little. Everybody had very little in my small town. Nobody knew we were poor."
She went on to tell me that her father had been a hardcore Communist party member--a man fantically dedicated to Tito. He had fought bravely against the Nazis and had returned home a hero. But as he had gained power through the party, her father had become more and more cruel.
"My father killed a great many people," she said.
I was startled. "He really did? You know that?"
"Oh yes. He killed a great many people for such a small town. Finally the government--they put him in jail for killing so many people."
That was pretty remarkable considering the latitude that Tito gave to loyal Party members to maintain order. She went on to tell me that he molested her and her two sisters and beat her mother before he was taken away.
"So how did you get here?" I asked her.
"I come to this country in 1966," she said. [She would have been 22.] "My father escaped from jail and got out of country. He sent for me. I vanted to live in America, so I came."
"Did he try to molest you again?" I asked.
She nodded. "Yes, but I was big girl by then---voman. I beat him off and said if he ever touch me, I kill him. But I tink later, [when she thought he had stopped such things] he must have got hold of my daughter. The holy men and the police tell me once a man do this to his daughters, he will do grand children. The one follows the other."
I already knew this, but I realized that she had been quite innocent.
"So what happened?" I asked.
"I got avay from him."
"Did you ever see him again?"
"Oh yes. Vhen he was dying, he called for me. My ex-husband and I flew in the middle of the night. He vas dying."
"Was he sorry?"
"I tink so. He couldn't speak."
"Could you ever forgive him?"
"I forgave him, baby girl. Right then. He was so pitiful. It was so awful. As soon as I see him like that, I forgive him. I tell him so."
"Did he get angry?" I asked.
"No, he cry, but he cannot speak. I tell him, you rest now. A beautiful person maybe awaits you on the other side."
My eyes got huge. "Do you really believe that?"
She was surprised. "Oh no, baby girl. My father killed people. you can't even imagine the suffering he caused. No, no way to heaven vor him. None."
"So you think he went to hell?"
"Oh yes. He went to hell. He killed people. Many people. You can't imagine the things he did to people."
I was puzzled. "But why did you tell him that about a beautiful person?"
She shrugged. "I didn't want him to panic. It vuz all too late. Why frighten him?"
"Did you think, maybe, that he should pray and ask God to forgive him?"
She shook her head. "He did not believe in God, baby girl. All his life, he hate belief God. He was a true communist. "
"Even on his deathbed, filled with guilt, he didn't believe in God?"
She shook her head. "Not even then. But ven I saw such misery, I forgave him. Who am I not to forgive him? God has forgiven me. And I knew, no more getting avay with it for him."
This was incredibly sobering. But we talked about it--the horror and the blasphemy of taking another human life unlawfully, of raping a woman or a child. Odd, with our widely disparate views, that we should agree on that so clearly. God makes people. And whoever marrs a human life commits a great sin against God, for we are God's workmanship. Maria, with all her odd accoutrements of a Communist Party leader's child gone into New Age mysticism, has that bedrock of understanding well in place. God is the ultimate judge, and in view of His righteousness and power to judge, the human sinner needs forgiveness and so must also forgive others, as Christ taught. The fact that she could forgive such a man and hold no hatred for him (which was clear in our discussion) filled me with wonder.
I haven't seen enough of life, I thought when we had finished.
