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Monday. There are experiences in our life that sometimes traumatize us in ways we can never forget. Also, there are experiences that one would think they should scar us for life but for some reason, they just pass as if nothing had happened.

I think it was 1989. We had recently moved to a new house. I have no idea what was happening or if anything had happened but one day my mom came home and said: “Tomorrow a priest comes to exorcize the house”. “Eh?”.
We really didn’t understand why such a thing was needed. I remember we asked why but the answer we got was: “Just because”.
I learned with the years that my parents never told us (kids) a lot of things that where going on around us. I remember finding out that my grandfather left my grandmother on my parents wedding day when I was about 17 years old. I wonder why I never asked where the f@#k was my grandpa on the wedding album. Or why my grandma looked like crap on all the pictures.

Going back to my Linda Blair moment.
I asked my mom: “Can I stay home while the priest comes or I should be somewhere else?”
“You can stay”
“OK”.
I’m not sure why I buried that day deep in my memory and just yesterday it came back to me.

It was early in the afternoon and I heard the front door opening. Soon after my mom shouted: “It’s me, we are here to do the thing”
I shouted “OK” and stayed on my bed reading. I could hear voices. My mom asking something, then a woman translating, then a male voice speaking some strange language, then again a female voice translating to my mom. I was thinking, ‘Who’s this exorcist?’
About 15 minutes later, I heard them coming upstairs so I got up just when they were about to enter my room. My mom said to me: “This is Vladika” and I looked at this VERY old man, super thing and almost as tall as the door. I approached him with a smile and ready to give him a kiss on the cheek, because that’s how we people in Argentina greet each other. But when I was about two inches from his cheek, he took my face and kissed me on the lips.
I froze and you could see WTF all over me. My mom and the interpreter snorted. I was shaking my head and looking at my mother with a “you are going to pay for this one” face.
I’m not sure why I was so shocked. I had heard before about the “camaraderie kiss”. But come on! I wasn’t the Russian president.

What happened after that, I can’t remember. I was paralyzed I guess.
The only thing I can recall was asking my mother later: “How old is Vladika?” “He’s 90”. Holy f@#k. A 90 years old man just kissed me.

I’m still surprised I wasn’t traumatized after that episode and that I could kiss again (and again, many more times).

~ by DotedOn on May 23, 2016.