It’s been a rough year for Leo*and friends of Leo too. That includes me. Leo is an old friend. Like every friendship, we have had our ups and downs over the years. Some of our issues emanate from the fact that I am a follower of Jesus Christ and Leo just thinks he is. He posits that since his Italian parents had him baptized as a child that he is “in like Flynn with God.” So, just like a genie, he somehow has God in a magic bottle and can summon him up whenever the need arises. This can be maddening at times when he lives an utterly debauched Manhattan lifestyle but, then turns to God when he needs to figure something out or when something goes wrong and he needs God to get him out of a jam.
This past year marks a time when he has turned to God as he tried to cope with the illness and ultimate death of another man’s wife. Even though he has never lived a Christian lifestyle, he believed that if he just attended church and lite candles for Lilia* that somehow he would open up a dialogue with God and get him to save her life. It seems like his concept was more a summoning of a spirit (Divine for me by a spirit-1 Samuel 28:8) rather than a relationship with the Lord. Oh come God, great spirit, you are present amid the incense and majestic organ music, I know it…. I had my work cut out for me.
What do I mean by debauched Manhattan lifestyle? Where do I begin? Leo changes women every three years whether he needs to or not. He reminds me of a celebrity with the same name who is also known for serial monogamy. I asked him why he can’t stay in relationship for more than three years and he seemingly has no idea. He acts like it has nothing to do with him at all. I guess, “where ignorance is bliss tis folly to be wise.” As a Christian I can’t go along with that.
Although he has been in a series of live-in relationships without the benefit of marriage he thinks that this is okay with God because he thinks that he conducted the relationships like a marriage. Just where in the Bible is that? Also, he puts a high value on having never cheated on any of the women that he was with as if that made everything okay. He believes his approach to relationships somehow sanitizes the situation and cleans it up. Only Jesus can clean it up Leo. Boy did he ever have huge justifications for his whole lifestyle but in the back of his mind I know that he knew it was not right with God. A man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh-Genesis 2:24.
One of the women that he was with over the years was Lilia. Lilia was brought to the United States by one of those Christian groups that sponsors foreign nationals who are seeking citizenship in the United States. While she did accept the free gift of sponsorship from the church, she did not accept the free gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that the church discussed that was also available to her. Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved-Romans 10:9.
Lilia had received a Ph.D in nuclear physics in the Republic of Georgia. It was then that she decided to seek relocation to the United States of America in order to advance her career plan. Lilia faced some hurtles on the road to citizenship which she decided could be fixed if she met and married an American citizen, but who? That is when she met and seduced Leo. Leo liked the sex but, not enough to marry her. Why buy the cow when the milk’s free? Although he enjoyed having a woman who was intellectually his equal he described her from the early days as a difficult woman. I remember at the time thinking this was not a good sign. Generally, when you first date someone you have that new love excitement but, no not Leo. He immediately told me all about her perfectionism, her control issues and her egotism. This did not sound like an auspicious beginning but, Leo just let it ride. There was a turning point for them when they went on a vacation together. Leo sustained an injury and was even unconscious for a minute and all Lilia could say was, “you ruined my vacation.” Ding ding ding ding red flag deal changer, don’t you think?
Something did change for Leo after that vacation. He was shocked by the way that she had treated him and he began to doubt her feelings for him. He began to think of breaking up. She tried to apologize and make things better but, things were not the same. Lilia was living with Leo at this point. She had insisted that he buy a huge antique bed that was way out of proportion in his small Manhattan apartment but Lilia just had to have it and now it was a constant reminder to Leo of what a schmuck he was.
Lilia sensed all this but, was still trying to work him over. Finally, she told him that if he didn’t marry her that she would have to go back to Georgia. Even though he knew he didn’t want to marry her, he felt terribly guilty about possibly being responsible for that turn of events. Still, he had a deep sense that she wasn’t the right woman for him and they finally broke up. (Note-By following the Christian lifestyle and biblical wisdom and only sealing the deal in a Christian Marriage before you have sex could have saved Leo a whole lot of trouble.) He had a great deal of guilt about this even until the present time which I never understood. She has used this guilt to get him to do what she has wanted him to do over the years.
However, despite Lilia’s dire prediction she was somehow able to remain in the United States. She eventually married a fellow Georgian,Vlad.* Vlad was a rather bohemian musician, almost a polar opposite to Lilia. They had one son together, Kiril.* Throughout the years, Lilia and Leo maintained a friendship. Leo loved to do that. He thought it the highest good to maintain good relations with as many of his ex’s as he could. He loved to have beautiful women on his arm to parade around the town. I always thought of these women as his harem and it was repugnant to me. But because of the temptation to sexual immortality each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband-1 Cor 7:2.
Can you ever really just be friends with an ex-lover? I think not. There is always that intimacy due to sexual encounter that you took without the benefit of marriage. There is an intimacy that remains always. One can still get an ego boost from that knowledge or you can even fall back into each other’s arms if conditions are right.
Leo was guilty of having a lot of emotional affairs all over the isle of Manhattan, uptown, downtown and midtown. He never seemed to get how these attachments “to all the girls that he loved before”-(Julio Iglesias & Willy Nelson) kept him from moving forward into a healthier relationship in the present. I was always uneasy about Leo’s relationship with Lilia. She always seemed to keep him captivated though and even though she was married, had a professorship and a child, she always seemed to have time for restaurant dates with Leo. He always paid of course. She went to him for advice and he to her. It did not seem right but, he did not ask for my approval and I did not give it.
About a year ago, I received an anguished call from Leo telling my of a very serious diagnosis that Lilia had received. The type and level of cancer he described told me that it did not look good. I immediately thought it was a terminal case but, Leo was like a crazed animal unable to accept this.
During the past year, Leo has been in terrible agony over this. He even placed his life on hold in order to take Lilia back and forth to Memorial Sloan Kettering appointments like a husband should. Only Leo wasn’t her husband, Vlad was. Leo researched Lilia’s condition and pushed the doctors into every intervention possible. He was crediting his own diagnostic skills rather than the doctors for keeping her alive. I am sure that the highly vaunted doctors of the prestigious hospital would be miffed at that notion! However, it seemed that Leo made sure that Lilia got all the state of the art treatment that the hospital had to offer. Poor Vlad was in the background being minimized by Leo. Vlad’s lack of fluency in the English language did not help him be able to come to the forefront of his wife’s treatment plan and Leo relished his role.
It was during this time that Leo wanted to be back on with God and he called me into the situation to make it happen. My husband and I are the only Christian people that he knows. Not knowing a single Christian is not uncommon in New York City. That place is mission territory. The call I received told me that he was looking for a Christian take on the whole situation, sorta of a Christian consultation I suppose.
He began asking me questions about life and death, love and marriage and what the meaning of salvation was. We talked the Bible, the meaning of covenant marriage and God’s plan for eternal life. This past year I saw Leo really delve into the word of God. He agreed to listen to my Pastor’s Sunday sermons throughout the year. Although I no longer live in New York State my Pastor’s Sunday Sermons are available online. It was going very well too. He was getting some foundational Christian messages. We had long wonderful talks about my Pastor’s sermons and I was praying for both he and Lilia to be able to come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
In moments of lucidity Lilia talked of going to Venice. Knowing that was not going to be possible, I suggested to Leo that he get in the car and take Lilia on a little vacation to my country home. My offer was to host them and cook healthy food, spend time in the Bible amid a lovely country setting.To my surprise, neither Leo nor Lilia were adverse to the message of the gospel. Instead, I found two people with advanced degrees in science who were functionally illiterate in Christian foundationals.
My husband and I prayed for them every day. More than anything I prayed for them to come to know who God is and what he has done. I understood that knowing God would straighten out their crazy lives. That’s who God is, he is a waymaker. He makes everything clear such as right versus wrong. He has a definition of love which puts the second rate worldly sense of love to shame. He brings clarity and comfort amid the turmoil that we face. All the things that I hoped and wished for Leo, Lilia and even Vlad and Kiril to have.
As I expected, Lilia’s health went from bad to worse. At times such as this, people crack or maybe they just show you who they really are in a dramatic fashion. That is what happened with both Leo and Lilia. People often act out their philosophy of life at the last minutes of life. Lilia realized her days were numbered and she even wanted to hasten her demise by getting off of her breathing tube. She told Leo that she didn’t give a darn and f**k Vlad.
Near the end of her life, Lilia’s husband Vlad dropped one on Leo too. He told Leo that Lilia had been having an affair with a married colleague at the university for fifteen years. Leo was shocked that he never knew this and resented having Vlad, Robert* and himself sitting at her hospital bedside at the end. Can you imagine the nerve of this bum after the way that he treated Vlad resenting Robert’s presence? It sort of served him right. It was then that I realized that he was part of Lilia’s harem. He wanted to be the one that she truly loved and he resented sharing the spotlight with any of these other dudes.
Lilia really went out with a bang. A few weeks before her death, she told Leo that she was leaving him her upper East Side condominium. Her husband would get her other financial assets and a second condominium that she owned which was located in New Jersey. She always craved attention and she got it. This was a shocking arrangement. When Leo told me about it, I was stunned. Leo tried to soften the news by letting me know that he never expected anything from Lilia’s estate. He also wanted me to know that acquiring this U.E.S. pad could help get him out of a difficult situation. Furthermore, he even tried to convince me that Vlad didn’t care if Leo got Vlad’s apartment. I found that very, very hard to believe. Vlad didn’t mind if he was going to have to move out of his apartment? Vlad didn’t have any feelings about his primary residence, a piece of prime Manhattan real estate, that he had been living in with his wife was about to be gifted by his wife to a former lover?
Leo should have gotten a clue that Vlad really did have feelings about everything going on but, those thoughts were not convenient for him. Leo asked me why I thought that Vlad would tell him about Lilia’s affair?
While Leo took Lilia to every doctor’s appointment and was professing her love to him, she was living with her husband and even had a boyfriend. At the end, she told Leo how good they would have been together. She further tortured him by saying that he should have married her when she asked him. Whey wasn’t I buying any of this? I want to know what she told Vlad and Robert during their private moments. Another old friend of Leo’s even suggested that there may have been other men too. Lilia had dated his best friend and broken his heart by cheating.This man was quite credible and said that he had kept this and some other facts from Leo so as to not hurt him. Lilia may have been cheating on everyone she was ever with! What made Leo think that she loved him? It was all so tragic and sinful.
It all came back to the many conversations that we had about the deep biblical definition of love. The type of love that uplifts, that is faithful and that serves. It entails a forever covenant not just a convenient union forged for immigration purposes. Leo has so many great qualities but when push comes to shove, he is unable to understand a deeper meaning for love. At the very least he has a deeply flawed definition of what love means. His definition of love is the kind of love that movies and television promote. The type of love that people settle for. Leo has been settling his entire life. Could he want more or would he settle for this cheap imitation of love? Also, would the possibility of a huge financial asset such as an Upper East Side Apartment make him forget everything he has begun to learn in the Bible concerning love of money as the root of all evil? This is a huge temptation for Leo. He had been screwed in his own families’ wills a few times and it had left him with a lot of anger. Leo had a very complicated situation arise with his father’s Italian will when he passed away. The case was so complicated that it has lasted for years and Leo has yet to get one dime from his father’s estate. Why? The chilling answer is there was some goomahs who approached the court seeking money from the estate. For those not familiar with the New York Italian slang, a goomah refers to a mistress.
The parallels with Lilia’s many men and complications in her will has a strong similarity to what Leo’s father’s estate looked like. I pointed this out to him but he just couldn’t see it. Leo has a bunch of huge temptations in his way blocking his path to God. Will he move forward? All I know is that as soon as money came into the picture, suddenly Leo went from studying the Bible to seeking my approval for his actions. When he pushed me, I cautioned him to take some time to think about the right and wrong of the situation from God’s point of view before moving forward. I have not heard from him since then.
Lessons from the Bible: But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.-Ephesians 5:3.
* The names were changed for privacy. A few events may be out of chronological order because Leo just doesn’t make sense some times!
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