Go Easy Heidi

I’ll get you unsubscribed, Heidi. But I recall Kristin’s interest in Eastern Philosophy since I knew her.

I have to defend her from your assertion that she had anything to do with Gina’s death. She did not write her “death chart.” That was Keith, I suspect. He guided Gina, I suppose.

Even years after it happened, the loss of Gina affected Kristin. She was not there.

But Kristin did not neglect Gina. Gina went her own way.

For Kristin to come out and take her place is a good thing. I support her. She is brilliant. So are you Heidi.

Many times they criticized you. You caught Raniere red-handed, sleeping with your sister when she was 15.

They said you could have stopped this man’s career and saved your sister.

I defended you. You were young. You were 20 and hoped Raniere would marry Gina as he seems to have promised.

It was a mistake, but not ill-intended.

How many lives might have been saved had you told on the criminal? No one knows.

Think of that the next time you charge us with all our mistakes and evil intent.

Many of your recollections are wrong, Heidi. Not grounded on facts. Plain off and wrong.

Misremembrances.

So please, Heidi, stop attacking. It won’t do well.

Kristin believed in Raniere at one time. She was not the only one. Your sister believed. Many others whose lives have gone to ruin believed in him.

If the grave could open, we could talk again to Gina, Kristin Snyder, Pam or Barb, or others he knew and who died.

What would they tell us?

We talk about an object lesson. We cannot go back and undo it.

If we could, I would ask you to return to one Christmastime in the shadows of the past.

You saw a man climbing from your sister’s bedroom. They asked you not to tell. She was 15. He was 23.

A bearded monster. I ask you to go back and go to the police. Go to your mom. Tell them.

He was a grown man. She was a child. It was statutory rape then as it is now.

But you can’t go back.

So I will thank you for going to Jim Odato and John Tighe and telling your story. Telling it even with your mistake in it.

That prevented some, who knows how many little girls from the deviant rapist.

I want you to consider that we do not know what happened to Gina. Keith may not have killed or persuaded her to suicide. The so-called Buddhist monks she was with had a hold on her.

She may have caused them trouble. I have learned that many of these are not what they appear to be. She died on their grounds.

Go easy on yourself. I know about false accusations. I know for a time, the authorities accused you of abusing your son. I was ready to defend you. I knew it wasn’t true.

Go easy on yourself.

Not grief, but gratitude. Take her and cut her out in little stars.

Don’t be too hard on the victims who still follow him. It always astonishes me how callow the victims of Raniere can be.

They act as if they invented a change of mind. They might have followed a dozen years and fought as the dead-enders do now for their right to believe. But for them, the dead-enders are ludicrous fools, evil and ill-intended.

Because they do not see instantly what it took them a dozen years to see.

It comes with pain to realize you were wrong about the most important thing in your life.

But it must come. No one will give them the time. No space for change. Only condemnation.

But Kristin’s is not like the little hearts of the others. She can feel for those who were led astray by the monster. She followed for 22 years. Then she rescued herself and her son. She is trying now to help others. Let us be happy about that. Instead of the harsh voice of condemnation.

Go easy, Heidi.

Be gentle on the curves and turns, for there are many, and the road ends up always the same.

The followers of Raniere often did not know of their talent. They were those who could soar. And they did not know it when he brushed or marred them and took away their flight.

Some of them became aware of his hatred and learned to think. I helped a few.

But the love of flight was gone.

They forgot to remember that it was effortless before they knew him. That’s why they went to him. They heard the chimes at midnight and ran to get from him what they had already. And will have again.

So some of them still long for the vanished past. Go easy on them.