MY MOTHER AND I had been at hammer and tongs ever since I decided to be an actor. Eventually I stopped going home. Then, at a very low emotional ebb in my life, an acquaintance told me about Christian Science and invited me to a Sunday church service. I didn't know what it was all about, but I remember coming away feeling lighter. As if a load had been lifted off my shoulders. I attended the Wednesday evening testimony meeting and also the next Sunday service.
Then I received a telegram from my mother in England asking me to come home right away due to a family emergency that, upon my arrival, I discovered hadn't been urgent after all. My negative reaction to these circumstances resulted in a heated argument with my mother, after which I felt incredibly sorry. I'd gone home with the intention of bringing peace and harmony and felt that I had created chaos instead. How could I begin to be forgiven? I thumbed through the Journal my Christian Science friend had given me to read on my journey and found a list of churches, practitioners, and Reading Rooms. None were within easy reach of my parents' home, so I decided to write a letter to the nearest Reading Room over 70 miles away. I wrote "to whom it may concern" about my distress and what I had done. Then I posted the letter and left for my home in Rome, Italy.
Imagine my surprise when I received a letter from my mother on Friday of the same week. She told me that a "Christly" woman had come to visit. This elderly woman had received my letter at the Reading Room, and set out immediately by train and bus, and then on foot through the snow, to my parents' house. She talked to my mother about Christian Science. My mother said that she didn't know why I had behaved as I did, but if I had anything whatsoever to do with such a Christly woman I couldn't be as bad as she thought I was, and she was ready to let bygones be bygones. My mother never became a Christian Scientist, but we had a natural loving relationship from that lady's visit on.
