Thomas Drewicke’s Scientology Story
Growing up, all of us grandkids became very good friends with our Grandma’s best friend Amanda, so much so that we even called her “Grandma Amanda”. But why, I asked myself? Didn’t “Grandma Amanda” have family of her own? Turns out that “Grandma Amanda” did have a family, yet never spent time with them.
Amanda’s husband died at a young age, so she had to raise their only daughter alone on a small-town librarian’s salary in a house without running water. Her daughter is attending college in Texas, and meets a supposedly fine young man, studying to be a doctor. They decide to marry, and move to another state so the husband can finish his studies. While in Boulder, the husband is turned on to Scientology, and quickly coerces his wife into it.
Amanda, a devout Catholic, is dubbed a “Suppressive Person” and her daughter refuses any and all contact with her. Since she was a kind soul, my Grandma almost immediately brought Amanda in to all of our family functions, including all the major holidays. Meanwhile, Amanda’s daughter has moved with her husband to Ohio (without Amanda’s knowledge) and had a son and a daughter of her own, whom Amanda had never even seen pictures of.
But this story has a happy ending. Amanda’s daughter finally saw the error of her ways and/or the courage of her convictions, and dumped her husband in the night and took her son and daughter with her (the husband never tried to get them back, as the church now saw his wife and kids as SPs).
The daughter met a very nice Catholic dentist who accepted her and the children, and Amanda finally got to meet her now grade-school-aged grandkids after nearly 20 years of separation from her daughter, and now has 3 more grandkids fathered by the dentist husband to boot! You always hear about how the 1st holiday get together without a certain family member is difficult, but the first Thanksgiving we had without “Grandma Amanda” was actually a wonderful occasion, as it was the first Thanksgiving Amanda had had with her daughter in many, many years.
Amanda is now happily retired and living in California in a modest trailer a stone’s throw away from her daughter’s family, and sees the grandkids on a regular basis.