Hello again gentle members,
Remember, I never said I was leaving for good in my "goodbye" post. Seems my life is getting a little more Dubbish of late and I'd thought I'd pull a Michael Jordan "I'm back out of retirement...till next time" and fill you in.
It's been a busy last couple of weeks. Besides starting a new school and getting involved there (I'm thinking about running for student government...hehe) my family is shriveling before my eyes. Three things in quick succession:
1) My grandmother -- in her mid-eighties -- enters the hospital with pneumonia. I visited her over the weekend and it seems her mind has taken a turn for the senile. Talking to her by her bedside we had a strange conversation. She thought I wasn't her grandson, but her son! This was weird. Scary. Finally she understood that it was me, but only after a few minutes. My mother took her home from the hospital and she didn't know the area around her house. My mother is frantic that she's going to die soon. Hence, "the spectre of death..."
2) My uncle's wife is also in the hospital and also possibly near death. The muscles around her lungs don't work anymore. She's on machines to keep her breathing and will undergo steroid treatment to try and reactivate her defective muscles. If this doesn't work..."the spectre of death." (Oh, I've never met this woman by the way. Nor my uncle. He was disfellowshipped well over twenty years ago and I wouldn't know the man if he walked right past me. I called him some months back and told him I was no longer a JW. I asked if he wanted to have lunch. I think this was so shocking and "weird" for him that he didn't give me a response! Nobody said life in a JW/ex-JW family would be a cake walk!)
and now for the kicker....
3) I learn that my sister and her husband have been accepted to Gliead and will be leaving for Patterson April 1. (How appropriate!)
This last item is really the one that's gotten to me. When I left the JWs over two years ago I essentially became dead to my sister, who is almost nine years older than me, by the way. Of course, she's pretty much become dead to me. I guess hearing about this monumental happening in her life just reinforces how far apart -- galaxys apart -- we really are. Obviously she and her husband Tom are thrilled about this "privelege" -- and people are Just So Happy for them as well (except my mom who is not too excited that her daughter will most likely be living in South America for the indefinite future! Just think what she's going to tell people, "Oh, yes my daughter's a missionary and my son's an apostate" LOL )
Strange goings-on folks. It's hard to put into words the feelings I have about this. It seems my family has just fallen to pieces, for better or worse (did I forget to mention that my other uncle, a loyal JW, has seperated from his loyal JW wife?). I guess the Buddhist idea of the impermanence of life really hits home these days -- the looming death of two family members, the further death of my relationship with my only sibling. Life is always in flux. Carpe diem.
Bradley