She was the callow Catholic school senior who cried the night her boyfriend French kissed her, fearing she’d become pregnant. Five months later, now a bracingly pretty college freshman, she was wooed and plundered by her theatre professor. It was give and take–he gave her drugs and took her virginity. Two months later, she had an abortion. She spoke matter-of-factly about the earthquake that had reduced her to rubble, then never mentioned it again. She’d built a protective barrier around her heart.
I thought she was the most sophisticated creature on the planet. When she agreed to go out with me, I was certain she’d discover I was a rookie, and laugh me off. Instead, she laughed with me, and sat in a grocery cart while I pushed her around an empty parking lot. The lost girl had met the lost boy, and they’d breached each other’s barriers.
We didn’t know where we were going, but we were going together. We decided we’d move to England and break into theatre! But the day I got my passport, she got cold feet. So, instead we rented an apartment 6,000 miles short of England. She acquired a day job at a hospital and met a handsome, world-weary doctor. And suddenly we were done.
Five years and one condensed lifetime later, the lost boy called the lost girl. Things had changed, I told her. I’d found my Creator and fallen in love with him. She laughed and called me simple, said she too had changed. She’d embraced The New Age: “I am the center of my universe!” she announced (she’d finally found a safe place). “And you are the center of your universe.”
I told her I was happy with the one God had made.
Then she then urged me to leave California because “all of the best psychics” were prophesying an earthquake that would destroy everything west of the Rockies!
“I’ll be OK,” I replied.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because it’s not going to happen in my universe.”
She abruptly ended the conversation, and we never spoke again. I’ve regretted that gotcha ever since.
Yesterday, I found her Facebook page. Her most recent post was dated four years ago. It was a warning about an imminent earthquake. And then there was silence. Did it happen in her universe? I wondered acerbically, then checked the unworthy thought.
So I googled her. And found her obituary. One year after her final post, she’d passed away. I don’t know how. I know she’d moved east of the Rockies and was “a dedicated member of the New Age community.” The obituary also said she was kind and supportive and “lit up every room she walked into.” I believe it.
Did she find her way? What happened in the year between her dire warning and her passing? I don’t know. I never knew the woman she became. But I knew and loved the lost girl she’d been. And I pray that the God of all universes reached out to her during that time and prepared her to come home
To the safe place he’d made just for her.
Mitch Teemley 
A Like seems hardly worthy of this beautiful parable. Moved Beyond Words seems more appropriate. Had it been a UCC 7th grader the story could have been me but by the time my volcano erupted thirty years later, I fell to my knees…and the story continued on a new Path.
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Thank you, Deb. So sorry about the pain you experienced, but glad your knees and feet found that Path.
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Oh Mitch, I should have said so sorry for your loss.
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Reblogged this on Saint Michaels Ministry and commented:
A very good read
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Honored.
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Wonderfully written.
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Thank you, Joseph.
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Thank you for the reminder. I met my 2nd true love (the one in college, not the one in high school) last month for the first time since 1959. He still was a faithful Christian, thank God. But there was something different about him. Friends agreed he had changed a lot through the years and had an enigmatic past no one seemed to know about. But, when we were young, he had a clear, defined, and simple faith. I will always be grateful for what he shared with me when I was 17 years old.
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The poignancy. A lovely piece, Mitch.
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Thank you, Gery.
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Wow! Thank you!
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Very interesting but sad.
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Wow, just wow. Beautiful in its simple grace, the story and the format in which you present it. I really have to wait until I’m not at work to read your stuff though brother. At least today I’m at the women’s prison and tears are more tolerated.
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Thanks, brother.
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Writing this could not have been without its pain, and yet it must have been cathartic too. On the reader’s side, it is both humbling and elevating.
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Yes, it was both. Thank you, dear Sarah.
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I had a close friend who had a similar college experience, fortunately hers didn’t require an abortion. We’ve lost touch, but I often wonder how she’s doing.
This was a beautiful post, Mitch.
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Thank you, CJ. Praying you’ll reconnect with your friend.
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A pastor friend of ours once told us that if we are uncertain of someone’s eternal existance that has passed on, to pray and our Father will reveal the truth to us. We have seen this come to pass many times since. Check it out and let me know how the Lord reveals His truth to you.blessings, dear brother.
Joe YAKOVETIC 16221 Flallon Avenue Norwalk, CA 90650
mobile: 909.241.6088
SDG Soli Deo Gloria “To God Alone the Glory”
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I hope she found her way, Mitch.
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Oh, Mitch… this is a heartbreaker! I pray with you that she found her way during that year to the Creator!
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My goodness, Mitch. This is a deeply moving personal story. And you tell it so very well. I do hope she has found Him.
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Wow.
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Wonderfully written, Mitch.
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A wonderful ‘love’ story and still one more reason why we must trust God and hope that many times we don’t get what we think we want. God knows far better than we do. Even though it may be that we are innocent at times, in what we want, the consequences are and can be deadly. Your story also illustrates how no matter how much we wish the best for others: we have no power over it. Each person must choose their own path individually. Mitch, I am so very glad that you chose the very path that you did and stayed on it. Thanks for this personal inner discovery. Tom
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I appreciate your reflections on the post, Tom–and very much agree.
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That was compassionate, and towards someone whose choices you fundamentally disagreed with. That’s hard to do!
Life is so rough – for everyone, in a million different ways. No-one escapes it. Let’s all be kind.
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Amen.
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Powerful and beautifully written post, Mitch.
I was a lost boy that dated some lost girls before Christ saved me at the age of 23.
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Indeed, I imagine many of us were. Thank you, Bill.
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I see grace in your memory! God bless you
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Thank you. You too!
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Just…wow!
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I posted a ‘like’, which is so not appropriate. Thank you for sharing this moving story.
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Thoughtful and moving Mitch….
Blessings,
Len
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Very nice!!!! I really dig this!
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Thank you.
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Forgot to mention the picture. I love the picture as well!
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