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My Real Memoir
The best part of the summer, my epic strep throat notwithstanding, was behind me. I repeated my Shakespeare class with a professor who was dull but, unlike the previous one, at least recognized me as a fully-evolved homo sapien. His dry, academic approach did, however, whet my appetite for acting and directing Shakespeare.
And my new girlfriend Darlene—now just “Dar”–because being in love means never having to use full names—felt almost the same. So we talked about moving to England and “breaking into theatre” there. We were free to do whatever we wanted—together!
Or at least I was.
At first, our dates were passionate and playful. For my birthday, Dar gave me a Tolkien-esque map of my apartment Og Hollow, with suggestively sexy names and signs leading to the bedroom. But when we were at her parent’s house, where she still lived, she donned a more reserved personality. It wasn’t that her parents were unkind or abusive. Far from it, they were polite and friendly. But there was an invisible cloak over their household, as if they found it safer to live in the shadow of happiness, rather than its full light. When I mentioned this, Dar told me her parent’s story:
Her father, an American GI, had met and courted her mother in a Yugoslavian village. They’d fallen in love, gotten married, and started their happily-ever-after together. Until Dar’s dad told her mom that, as an act of kindness, he’d once married a pregnant teenager to legitimize her baby (not his), only to see her run off with someone else a short time later. When Dar’s mother, a traditional, and frankly fear-driven, Catholic, heard this, she confessed her sin of marrying a divorced man to the local priest. Should she get an annulment? No, the priest told her, it was too late–she was and would always be “a whore.”
Darlene’s mother attended mass every day, but sat in the back, and never took communion — because her sin could never be forgiven (she’d accepted the Yugoslavian priest’s pronouncement and refused to sully the presence of another holy man). Dar’s mother changed into her nightgown in the dark each night, so her husband wouldn’t have to look upon her sinful body. And when, on rare occasions, they had sexual relations, she did so knowing she was committing adultery yet again.
Dar and her siblings were the fruit of sin.
Dar’s father didn’t believe this. Neither did she, or her feisty blonde cowgirl sister, or her Mensa-level teenage brother. But each in their own way had learned to live a double-life: one in pleasant denial of the shadow over their home, and another in the full light of their lives outside.
Or had they? Darlene had abandoned her mother’s religion the moment she graduated from her Catholic high school, she said, and stepped out into the wide, anything-goes world–may that Yugoslavian priest burn in his own private hell (or better, I pray, have earnestly repented and begged forgiveness from every person he’d condemned). But Dar didn’t seem free. She’d seemed to have a shadow of her own.
One she wasn’t telling me about.
My Real Memoir is a series. To read the next one, click here.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave (for ourselves and others) when we twist Scripture, knowingly or unknowingly. 😢
Sad story! Such priests can destroy lives when some of their lambs are this devoted their words.
Everyone has a backstory and it’s never all bunnies and buttercups.
The girl in the shadow—it’s upsetting that the priest’s words brought shame and “shadow” living, Mitch. Dar is a wonderful name (Darlene is my mom’s name) and I hope she found the light to life—but it seems there was still a shadow…we will find out. Thank you for sharing.
My privilege, dear friend.
🤍
How God’s heart must ache to see some of his children suffering needlessly at the hands/words of others. I pray his redemption over the times my words and actions have been hurtful!
Bless you, Nancy.
In my twenties, (1980’s), I used to run into a lot of broken people e.g
The female flatmate who got told by an aunt she was an unwanted child.
That rather cold girl I once had a crush on, who never worked out how to stand on her own feet.
Another one who had an ‘unexpected’ child concieved in Brazil when she was staying there as an exchange student in high school. (The catholic parents weren’t impressed)
The male flatmate that got a rather disasterous girlfriend who caused his family to dis own him
The one thing I did learn from afar, was that you can ‘fix’ them, but you can try and put them on the right path to healing themselves (with a little help from above).
Opps, meant to say “you cant fix them” in the last sentence.
That’s just heartbreaking! I’m not surprised Darlene had issues of her own. And I feel very sorry for her parents.
<3
Thank you, Mitch.
Gary Avants Forbear Productions * *garyavants66@gmail.com garyavants66@gmail.com
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Very provocative story. Gives you something to think about. How many secrets hold you in bondage? Or is one big one? This shows me that many are bound by what they believe (the lies someone else spoke over them) instead of the truth of God’s word telling you who you are.
Sadly, very true, San.
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How very sad! False teachers do so much damage.