While I have always thought my problems with the Catholic church began with my overt introduction to a monastery, in 2000, I have wondered recently if I was on their radar earlier. This seems implausible, but so has a lot of what has happened to me, and it seems there has been a very deep-rooted and long-standing hatred of me that has fomented for some time. I sometimes wonder if it didn't begin in 2000, but even back when I was in high school. There were some powerful Catholic individuals in the background who may have known about me, if they believed I was tormenting my "boyfriend", who was baptized Catholic, and trying to get him to "convert".
At that time in my life, I had nothing against the Catholic church, and my favorite heroine was Mother Theresa (whom I still admire). However, I was from such a conservative christian background, I believed literally that "believers" should not be "united" with "unbelievers, and there is a scripture verse often quoted to support this idea. My thought pattern was that if I couldn't have a boyfriend who wasn't a christian, because if strong feelings came of it and we wanted to marry, we couldn't marry because of disparate religious beliefs. Also, I knew it would tear me up to have kids and not have them raised the same, AND I believed I would be tormented if I loved a man and lived with him, believing he was going to Hell because he wasn't "saved".
So while in reality this guy, Robin Bechtold was my boyfriend, I told him we couldn't be and I guess, tormented him for a couple of years, telling him I couldn't be with him because he wasn't a "christian" (born again, saved). His best friend, Erik Lund, who is his best friend to this day, and was since early childhood, went to a private Jesuit school in Portland, and hated me. He hated me then and I'm quite sure he still does. Erik Lund's father was a prominent lawyer in Portland, Oregon but lived in Beaverton. Robin was baptized Catholic but not practicing. His mother was raised Catholic and I guess HER mother was very powerful within the Catholic church and rich, and cut Janet off when Janet married a non-Catholic. Her mother was from somewhere in California, maybe Sacramento? Robin's brother, Nathan, became a state trooper in Oregon and ended up going to Ireland a number of times and becoming extremely devout Catholic.
At any rate, I was not trying to break anyone's heart. I truly cared for Robin, and no one else, which is why I didn't kiss anyone else for so long. But I didn't want to torture myself and care for him more and have it going nowhere. So I told him no and he only wanted me more. He put me on a pedestal that was completely not me, and wrote what was actually some decent poetry about me. I'll never forget he described my eyes as being "cyan blue" which was I think a compliment with possibly a darker undertone. It was quite dramatic and overdrawn, and I didn't realize it then, but while I truly had my own heart broken by him and a particular course of action he took, he had felt decimated by me. Which caused his mother to snub me my senior year of high school, when she went up to all the girls in the Prom Queen party and complimented their dresses, in a line-up, passing by me without saying a word. Robin told me once he had to drink to get to sleep at night, so I don't know if that did it. I also know Erik Lund hated me and the few times I was around him, he was aloof and ignored me, even if there were only 3 of us in the room. He was particularly angry or upset when he found Robin reading a Bible one day and told him I had him whipped. One of the guys in high school called me "Mother Reverend Garrett" because I was known to be devout christian. When I cut things off with Robin, and tried to be friends, he always tried to win me back. But once, he chased me down in his car to do it, trying to cut me off. I know some people hated me for making him care at all. It would have been better if we'd never met, because even years later, Robin informed me that he believed a certain problem he had to this day was because of ME.
I typically wouldn't give any of this a passing thought, and didn't, for years. I DID love Robin, and still care about him, but I wonder, in hindsight now, if anyone wanted to get revenge on Robin's behalf. I remember spending days and nights in my room crying over Robin, because I wanted to be with him and felt I couldn't be, and I remember how I felt when he was with other women instead, but maybe no one else knew or it wasn't enough. Because it does seem odd, in thinking back, that ALL these bad things have happened to me, and almost ALL of the bad things have involved individuals from the Catholic church. If Erik Lund told a priest about me, because he was angry, and the Jesuits knew I was attempting to "convert" a baptized Catholic, would they go after me? I wouldn't think so, but maybe put me on a list of one to watch?...
One rainy night, after I had broken up with Robin when I was 17, after we had kissed a few times, and we'd known eachother over a year, I was visiting him as a friend. His parents were a little cool towards me but it was understandable. I was driving my parents stationwagon home from his house. I'd been on the road only 10 minutes and as I was approaching a hill, this car came out of nowhere, behind me and was approaching so fast with the brights on, and I knew it was going to hit me if I didn't move. I jerked my car to the right, where there was a small ditch, and the other car just took the whole road and sped off. It happened fast, but after I jerked the car to the right, I then tried to correct and overcorrected. Instead of hitting the brakes, being an inexperienced driver, I slammed on the gas and charged my car across the road. I remember seeing branches and leaves and not knowing what was going on. When I opened my door, I looked down and there was a cliff with trees growing from the bottom up. My car was sitting in the middle of branches and I realized my car was balancing on a TREE, or so I thought.
I gingerly moved to the other side of the car, and got out where I could see the road below. I wasn't harmed at all. Not even whiplash. But when I stood back and looked up I saw that the stationwagon was propped up against a tree, at a 45 degree angle, towards the sky, like it was a rocket. What had happened, was that instead of slamming the car into the telephone pole and trees there, my car had rode the guy wire of the telephone pole. The guy wire was beneath the belly of the wagon, propping the car up with the help of some trees.
I called for help and someone drove me to Robin's house. I told him what had happened and he wanted to see, so he drove me back out and started laughing. He was shocked. It was the craziest sight. Admittedly, according to the tow truck driver, who first thought the car had rolled, and ended up like that, and the driver was dead. He looked at me when I told him what had happened. I wasn't hurt at all.
I told my parents that the other car had tried running me off the road but they were more concerned about me and the state of their car when they knew I was okay. When they came out to have a look, they were shocked as well. It really was a kind of miracle. But while I dismissed what had happened as a funny story, more things happened, in rapid succession, and now, at this point, I'm wondering what has been going on.
I moved to Sherwood, Oregon where this happened, when I was 15 years old. It was 1990. I told everyone all about my best friend back in Moses Lake, Washington--Stephanie Maiers. I loved her and missed her. She and I became best friends at a private christian school we went to, from age 13-15. While I met Robin my first day of school, on the bus (he was on our route), in 1990, my sophomore year, Stephanie, soon thereafter, met a girl who had moved to Moses Lake, Washington with her family, from Canada, and they became best friends, and her name was Karen. Karen would figure into the Catholic picture years later, in the strangest way, and I am told her father or her husbands father, works for the FBI in New York, where she now resides.
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