Chapter 45 Do you want to shake hands at least?
On the weekend of July 28th and 29th of 2001, we decided to have a “big chill” party at our house. Witness friends came from all over the country. Washington and Oregon. Gracie Frazier came in from Reno. All of our old Witness friends were invited.
It would be the last Jehovah’s Witness gathering I would ever attend. It would be the last time I ever saw most of my Jehovah’s Witness friends.
I didn’t know it at the time but it turned out to be my going away party.
After fifty years it was time to make the biggest decision of my life. There was a thousand things that could not be ignored anymore. It was all pointing to just one thing. Blue or red pill.
The weekend was pretty uneventful. There was some good rap sections and plenty of great music and food.
In one of the rap sections I happen to mention to some who were elders I thought the church was losing their grip on the young people. Which if you look at their numbers it seems to be going in that direction.
I talked about how our children were not buying the program like our generation did. How many years can you hype Armageddon is coming. Especially now that the society has changed their stance on the year 1914. The truth is the 1914 generation is all but gone.
Of course my “speech was shocking.” To come right out and say the society was having problems was an abomination! It was like telling Hitler the war was lost in 1945. It might be thought but never mentioned.
No one came to me but they did go to my wife Debbie. I have no idea what they said to her. I can only imagine. How could I speak against the Fuhrer and the organization!
It’s funny but on Friday before the party she was acting very strange. It was like she was a different person. She was dancing around the living room as if possessed. It’s almost like she knew on a soul level, something was coming.
Monday I took the last of our friends to the airport. I came home and cleaned up some of the party mess.
I was sitting in the living room that night and thinking about the weekend and decided to see what Debbie was up to. So I walked back to our bedroom and into the master bath.
She was lying in the oversized sized bath tub staring at the ceiling with a very strange look on her face.
I set down next to her. She never even turned her head to even look at me. I set there for a moment and knew that something was happening to her and to me.
I felt that maybe there was some issues in her pass, before she even met me that she had not come to terms with.
I don’t why but I brought up that maybe she should get some professional help. That seeing a psychiatrist had helped me and maybe this was something that could help her with things that might be troubling her.
She never said a word and never took her gaze off of the ceiling. It was almost like she was in a trance.
I set there for a couple of minutes and got up and said, “O.K.” and went back to the living room and set there my myselve.
I was there for about ten minutes when she came to the living room wearing a white bath robe and towel wrapped around her hair. She had the same strange look on her face, as she walked over to me.
Not saying a word she kissed me on my cheek. She turned and walked back into the bedroom.
Don’t ask me how I knew, but in that moment I knew our marriage was over.
I set there and knew things would never be the same again. We had crossed over that final line that couples do. I really don’t thing she knew what was coming on a conscience level and this would be our last night together.
It felt like the kiss from Judas. Though she didn’t betray me. It was my religion that betrayed me. She was just the messenger.
The message was good bye, you need to go now.
It was our last kiss.
The next morning she was going camping with some of her friends from Washington. She was having a hard trying to get our car with the Seado attached to it, out of the driveway.
After I got the car situated. She got in and put the car in drive. The window was still rolled down.
Before she could put her foot on the gas I said. “After 27 years don’t you want to at least shake hands or something?”
She put the car in park and got out of the car. We held each other for a few seconds with tears in our eyes. Neither of us said a word.
She jumped back in the car and was gone.
A few days later she called me. She told me that she wouldn’t be coming home until I got my attitude straighten out about the church.
I said. “I can’t do it anymore!”