Hitting Rock-Bottom

By Christine
For 35 years, I was absolutely unable to go back to our beginnings. I just couldn’t! I had blocked all memories because something terrible had happened that I simply didn’t want to remember.
Christian was distressed about this because we just couldn’t talk about the past. Our past.
Yes, there was a very painful event, but not all memories were bad! It took Christ’s grace all these years to heal me, little by little, and for the past 3 years, I have reconnected with our history, with our beginnings, with how we were then, and I have learned to love our story!

The pain is still there, but it’s a healed pain. I can face it, and even embrace it!

Here is what happened.

La Grande Motte

I had just turned 19 in April 1975. In June of that year, I took a job in a restaurant at La Grande Motte, a touristy place on the beach. The restaurant’s name was La Cambuse. I was housed there with another girl, la Grande Motte being too far from Montpellier (about 18 miles).

My period was late. I had seen a doctor the previous month and he had given me the pill to start taking on my next period. But this next period just wasn’t coming! I bought a pregnancy test… And it turned positive!

My first reaction was excitement! I impatiently served dinner at the restaurant and as soon as it was over, despite the late hour, I took my moppet to go back to Montpellier to share my big news with the man I loved (hey we didn’t have cell phones then!) This was extremely imprudent on my part because the road was not the most frequented one, especially at night.

Christian didn’t get as excited as I was. The look on his face wasn’t the happy one I had expected. This is where my memory starts to blur.

He made it clear that he didn’t want this baby. I was devastated. I talked to his brother’s girlfriend, Dominique, who broke the news to me that Christian had had an abortion before. Still, I didn't realize at all Christian's suffering, I was too centered on myself. I talked to more friends, especially a sweet couple who already had a baby. They talked me into keeping the baby and I loved the idea, it was all I wanted. At the same time, I couldn’t picture myself without Christian, announcing the news to my Dad. I was afraid of him, afraid of his reaction. I went to see a doctor who also encouraged me to keep the baby. I wanted it so badly! But I wasn’t brave enough. I wasn’t strong enough. Abortion had just become legal in France on January 17th, 1975 (Loi Veil). 

Simone Veil, responsible for the legalization of abortion in France

Christian and I went together to a Family Planning center where they explained about the abortion. They told us that it was nothing, just some cells as tiny as a pinhead would be removed. We were completely misinformed, misled, and unprepared to face this evil. We believed them.
Then the decision was made and Christian took me to this strange place. I remember there were girls with babies there. A nun received us, yes a nun, but from what I remember she was a Protestant nun. She took our money. It was decided I wouldn’t have any anesthesia. It was more expensive. Then Christian left and I stayed for the night. The abortion would be done the next morning.

I was in a room with several other girls in my “condition.” One of them was having her 4^th abortion! During the night, I remember having a terrible panic attack! It's impossible to describe the feeling of absolute terror that overwhelmed me. I screamed, woke everybody up, the doctor came to calm me. I remember he was communist. He again told me that it was nothing, just a bunch of teeny tiny cells, not a baby. My memory blacks out here again. I know they had to put me to sleep, and then all I remember is waking up sobbing and bawling, a nurse trying to quiet and console me.

Christian came back to pick me up. I don’t remember much, except that he told me we would have other children. I know I tried to forget, to live as if it hadn’t happened.

“There is no question in my mind that we are 'disturbing a life process.' The trauma may sink into the unconscious and never surface in the woman’s lifetime...
But a psychological price is paid. Something happens on the deeper levels of a woman’s consciousness when she destroys a pregnancy.” Dr. Julius Fogel, abortionist

A wall started to build up around my heart, a wall that grew with the years, strangely even more after the birth of our first daughter. This wall kept my pain buried, kept me "safe" from it.  (to be continued)

Meet the Parents

By Christian

Meeting your girlfriend’s parents for the first time is always an interesting adventure. I met Christine’s Mom first.
For the Spring break 75, I drove Christine home, about 4 hours North of Montpellier. Her hometown, Le Creusot, was 45 minutes from the highway.
It allowed me to discover the beautiful country side. Rolling green hills, Charolais cows grazing (Gosh, my mouth was watering at the thought of the meat!), vineyards everywhere. I had heard about Burgundy wines of course, but I’d never had the chance to taste any.  I‘d never seen such landscapes and so much grass, so green, in my whole life either.

Then, there we were, in front of the large house; her Mom welcomed me as a family member right away.
It was a typical French home, as I’d imagined it. It was the first time in almost 5 years that I was welcomed into a French household!
We were right on time for lunch. Passing through the kitchen, I saw that Charolais steaks were on the menu. Christine must have tipped off her Mom! As a starving student, I was craving solid meat.
What I didn’t know, at the time, was that Christine’s Mom was very well known for letting things burn. So, this time, when she thought the steaks were done, she very carefully covered them, and they arrived almost boiled in my plate. Arghhhh! What a disappointment! I almost cried and couldn’t resist giving the one who would be my Mother in law her first cooking lesson. She still cooks steaks the way I taught her, good girl.
Then coffee arrived, and she had to have her second lesson!
She didn’t kick me out right away this time. A few months later, while visiting Christine in Montpellier, she told me coldly: “I am pretty happy to visit my daughter and to kick you out of her bed!” OK, got the message.

Later that summer, Christine and I were both working as waiters in a restaurant in Aigues Mortes, a very touristic medieval town. St Louis had left for his crusade from Aigues Mortes in the 12^th century! Christine’s parents were vacationing in the area and wanted to meet me. Christine took a few days off to be with them. They came at lunch time, at the height of the tourist season, when it was quite busy. I saw them coming and left my tables and customers to chat with them for a few minutes, wearing my waiter’s black pants and white shirt.
In my eyes, Christine’s Dad was the typical tourist, sandals (with socks), shorts, camera around his neck, the whole deal.

His gaze bored into me, weighing me in five seconds. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the report of his analysis on the spot.
Little did I know that he was the C.E.O of a huge factory. He had forty engineers in his engineering department, and thousands of workers. Among other things, they were manufacturing nuclear plants.
The main owner of the factory was one of the richest men in France, no less than Baron Empain, heir of the Schneider family.
Only when Christine’s Dad offered me a tour of the factory a year later did I figure out he was no ordinary tourist.

He had to train me for many years to learn a bit of Burgundy wines tasting. It was tough training. I feel sometimes I should go back to these sessions, as I truly enjoyed them.

In almost forty years, I have gotten to know them quite well. They have been Catholics their whole lives, never faltering. The house they live in now is a nice manor, always open to all. They are very generous, very devoted, and ready to help whoever knocks on their door. At some point they welcomed many Cambodian refugees who were fleeing the Pol Pot regime. Theses families were always visiting, staying. Christine’s Dad would find them jobs, they would get established in the area. Now their children call them Grandpa and Grandma and come visit with their own children. Yep I love my in-laws.

Childhood Unfinished Business (Healing in the Sacrament, part 4)

By Christine, www.catholicmarriageprep.com

My aunt from Montpellier died last night. Without her, I would never have visited this tapestry exhibition on November 27^th, 1974, and Christian and I would never have met.

After our first meeting on November 27^th, our relationship developed pretty quickly. After a few more chance meetings, we were together for good. 

What attracted me to him was his obvious self-confidence; the impression he gave of inner satisfaction. I was very insecure myself. I didn’t think I could ever be loved. My self-esteem was pretty low.

Strangely enough, I can see now, looking back, that he was sending me clues that he was emotionally unavailable, just like my father who had been so preoccupied by his job, and my mother who didn’t want me to pity myself.

As Harville Hendrix, Ph. D. puts it in his book Getting the Love You Want, Christian’s emotional distance triggered my primary drive, “which was to make a person who was distant and unavailable become close and dependable.” Meeting Christian “crystallized all of my childhood unfinished business.”

This didn’t make our relationship any easier, of course. Christian and his brothers were a kind of clan. They would make plans to live together, have a farm, leave France, etc. They didn’t like the French, and I was French. I didn’t belong. I felt left out whenever they talked about Morocco and their friends. I was discovering an entirely new world! I had the impression also, that women were, for them, only accessories to be used for fun and pleasure. What I couldn't realize at that time is that they were uprooted, they had no place they could call home anymore. They were grieving for their mother, the one who held the family together, and this was their way to make up for all they had lost.

Christian would often tell me that I shouldn’t get too attached to him because he liked to change. For him, at this time, sex was just a casual way of getting to know someone, not a big deal! He had told me about his previous girlfriend, and I thought that I was just a replacement for the one he couldn’t have. Since he couldn’t share his feelings, I didn’t know that he didn’t really love her. For me, since she was from Morocco, she belonged where I didn’t, and I thought he would never love me as much as he’d loved her. This idea got a grip within me and it stuck to me for years.
When we meet someone, we do not realize that this person has been wounded and suffers. We only see things from our limited selfish perspective.

I was desperate to become close to him, I wanted so badly for him to open up to me, to love me! I had an insatiable need for closeness, craving physical affection and reassurance! I'm sure I was very clingy.

Each time I tried to start a conversation, he would either grumble, “don’t bug me!” or crack a joke and it was over.

We were so different! He was more the kind that kept people at a distance in his desire to have the freedom to come and go as he pleased, not wanting to be pinned down to a single relationship. At the same time, he was fun, smart, resourceful, carefree, and attentive! With him, nothing seemed serious, and I envied his detachment and freedom.

The pain in our relationship was sometimes intense for me, but even so, he attracted me so strongly!

Isn’t it funny how God writes with our crooked lines?

Paid Forward!

By Christian (photos by Christine)

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I don’t know if you have ever been to San Luis, Colorado in the San Luis valley.
It’s the oldest town in Colorado, registered in 1851. Mainly Hispanic settlers used to live there.
Population today is about 600.

Stations of the Cross, San Luis

There are beautiful Stations of the Cross going up to a Chapel, rightly called the Shrine of the Stations of the Cross on top of a hill. There is another great Church ‘down town’ with a bed and breakfast attached, the Convent.

The convent

Then you have Main Street with two gas stations at both ends, and one cantina.
It was the very beginning of April when we went there, very few tourists, Main Street was kind of deserted.

We had an 18 years old French friend visiting us and we wanted to show her a bit of deep Colorado. Friends of ours had lent us their adobe house for the weekend and we had just arrived and wanted to eat.
We entered the cantina,  where only two tables were taken, one with four or six farm hands who stopped eating when we entered with our three teenage girls,  and another table with two Anglo couples sitting a bit in the back of the dining room.

It was kind of late in the afternoon; we ordered, blessed the table, made the Sign of the Cross as usual, and enjoyed our meal. The farm hands left their table, still staring at the girls, their lower jaws still hanging, and then the two Anglo couples also left the cantina. We realized that we were the only customers left and that it was maybe time for us to ask for the check and leave too.
So I asked the nice lady at the cash register for the check and she answered: “It’s been taken care of”. Her answer didn’t bother me since I am used to the fact that people don’t understand me when I speak. So I reiterated my question, I made an effort to articulate and polished my American accent. I got the same answer and I just couldn’t get it. It must have seemed obvious to the lady who got down from her high stool and came to our table to tell us: “Well I promised I wouldn’t tell you, but the two Anglo couples who were sitting there had a problem in their family, they prayed about it and the problem was solved. So they wanted to share their blessing and paid for your meal!”
What about that?
I promised I would never be shy blessing the table in public and so should you.

The San Luis Valley

Instructors Interview: How did you meet?

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Christian and Christine (from Christian's side)
As an International Business student, I had been working for the previous four years at the opera in Montpellier, France. It was a unionized place that allowed students to work there, for a meager pay.
In 1974 I still had two more years to go to complete my masters degree. The Fundamental Physic Group in Berkeley was reviving the Quantum entanglement theory, and Uri Geller was psycho/psychic binding forks and spoons. Peace and Love was still the motto in student circles.
That afternoon, after less than a couple of hours of work at the Opera, I was stuck in there with nothing to do, but as union dictates whether you have work to do or not you have to stay for four hours.
To my great surprise and for the only time in my six years there total, the boss came to me and asked me to keep for two hours the art gallery hosted in the Opera, for double pay.

“Sure,” I said, “no visitors and nothing to do? I can handle that.”
He was wrong; I had one visitor. I was diligently looking at the pictures in Time Magazine, and here came my one and only guest.

November 74 issue

She got all my attention: young, very young, and cute. I immediately noticed the American clothing, deep America I should say. Long brown hair, an out of place look, and an unfamiliar accent. I thought she was Canadian at first; I quickly learned that she was from Burgundy, France, just back from the States.
Small talk, invitation to join me at 6:00 pm to go to the student cafeteria across the Opera for dinner (I wasn’t paying for her dinner).
She was very nice, easy to talk to, happy to have somebody to talk to, fun, innocent. After dinner I showed her the old city. 

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I could feel that she wasn’t 100% at ease with a 22 year old wolf preying on a young demoiselle in the dark streets at night. 

Only when I left her at her bus did we exchange our names!

We didn’t exchange addresses, nor phone numbers, there was no next appointment. It was as if we knew we’d just meet again because it was meant to happen.
Just like it was meant to happen that we had met that afternoon….
What we didn’t know, though, is that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together, have five daughters, experience a strong conversion and come back to the Church, have ten grandchildren and counting, and dedicate our lives to the Lord! Wow.
We traveled to many countries together, left everything behind to follow our calling, left our job, house, relatives, friends, and finally our country to work exclusively with engaged couples, funny, huh?
We didn’t see that coming but we are sure very happy it happened.