I recently stopped by my father's house to pick up some mail and to drop off my brother's sunglasses. My father, a zealous dub with 24 years in the collective, asked to talk to me.
For those who don't know, my fiancee and I are having a baby, which for obvious reasons causes some consternation on my father's part: you don't have to be a Witness to believe that sex before marriage is wrong. (If someone wants to discuss whether this is a valid position or not, do it in another thread.) So, I expected my father to turn me into the elders. I expected some piously condescending moralizing. I expected it'd be awhile before we were comfortable enough to play tennis again.
But I wasn't quite ready for what came next: my father is stopping his association with me -- dub-speak for writing me off as his son.
In the hour-long conversation that followed, I remained calm, appealing whatever way I could, which was no way at all. Even if I marry my fiancee, pronto, he will not change his mind. Coming back to dub-land is the only way to do it.
Now: this weekend, my non-Witness uncle threw a family reunion, which in my extended family occurs only every several years or so. Of all in attendance, only three were Witnesses: my father, one of my brothers, and my sister-in-law, his wife. As usual, my uncle invited us through my father, who very deliberately took steps not to invite me. This wasn't a Witness function! It wasn't even his function! Yet he managed, in effect, to get non-Witnesses to participate in ostracizing me.
When asked were I was, my father simply replied, "Dedalus couldn't make it." I guess it's okay to lie when you're shunning someone, even if that person isn't disfellowshipped!
(My elders, by the way, have in fact contacted me, but I dealt diplomatically with them, and won't, I think, hear from them again, nor do I expect to be disfellowshipped.)
Until now I have always been calm and serene with my father, speaking to him respectfully, handling him delicately. But I'm (nearly) literally seeing red over being excluded from the family reunion. I want to call him out, tell him off, string together a series of expletives the like of which he's never heard spoken ... (any suggestions? )
But I doubt I will. I doubt I'll even shun him when his grandchild is born ... supposing he even wants to see his grandchild. Weird, I don't know if he does.
Anyway, this isn't an appeal for emotional support, necessarily, so much as it is another drop in the bucket of stories we tell. The moral is easy and old and familiar: Witnesses suck.
Dedalus