For the record, we do still love and respect the men who were on our committee. I don't hold them responsible for all of this. I consider them, more or less, mentally challenged... not in a derogatory way, but just for the fact that they cannot think for themselves.
I've lost a bit of respect for my dad, though. While these elders are a little bit removed from the situation, the excuses I make for my dad have diminished greatly. I'm his son, his flesh and blood. I stopped by my parents' house last night to say goodbye and made one last attempt to appeal to his logic. Nothing. In fact, he turned into a total hardass.
He told me he thought we'd already been through the "goodbye" two or three times. "How many times are we gonna do this?" I was shocked but I looked him in the eye and sarcastically said, "yeah, what was I thinking?! I mean we'll probably never talk again but that's no reason to keep saying goodbyes while we've got the chance. That's just ignorant." He said if he'd known that I wasn't going to respond to the elders, he would've turned in my emails months earlier.
So I said goodbye to my mom and gave her a hug. When I gave my dad a hug, he didn't hug back at all. Total rejection. Then he points to my mom, who's now bawling, and says, "This is who I need to hug. Because I'm gonna have to live with her!"
Anyways, my goodbyes are almost complete. My wife has almost finished all her goodbyes as well. We've visited family, sent emails, made phone calls. I'm going to call my elder brother this evening to say goodbye and then I'm supposed to get together with a few JW buddies tomorrow night. I've got three JW buddies at work that I'll talk to and that should do it. And then D-day is Tuesday.
