The Other In-Laws

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Today was another “Family Day” with my wife’s family. As is the norm, we converged upon their cabin in Wisconsin. I had a good time, hanging out by the bonfire and eating lots of food. I even helped pull the dock up out of the lake for the year.

A few people in the family were in hopeful expectation that my wife’s sister – the estranged, Christian one named Kara – would be there. To absolutely no surprise to me, she was not there. This was just fine by me, as she has chosen to make any contact I do have with her quite awkward, but many other relatives seem positively aching to see her. Her own mother, for one thing, hasn’t seen or heard from her in at least 6 months. Same goes for her grandma, her sisters, and nearly all of her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

She does, however, maintain some modicum of contact with her brother Les (who, if you’re slightly confused here, is also my wife’s brother). Les self-identifies as a Jehovah’s Witness and so, even though he’s probably considered ‘inactive’ by Witness standards, is just fine in Kara’s book.

Les seems to be trying to maintain peace with both sides – his devout Witness sister on the one side, and his other 20+ relatives on the other side. See, even though he identifies as a Witness, he doesn’t do any Witness activities, such as regularly attending their meetings or going door-to-door or refraining from saying things like “fuck.”

I completely understand his predicament, as I was in much the same situation for years, too. On the one hand, I had a strong feeling that the Witnesses were incorrect about a great many things. Indeed, I had proof that they were wrong about some things, and strong reasons to believe they were wrong about a bunch of other things. And, like Les, I wasn’t feeling satisfied by participation in the religion. Knocking on doors didn’t bring happiness, praying didn’t put my mind at ease or make me feel like some all-knowing deity was watching over me, and many of the people in the religion caused me frustration and grief.So, like Les, I didn’t mind missing meetings, slacking on my ‘theocratic duties,’ or hanging out with my wife’s non-Witness relatives (even if my religion did teach they were all gonna die in Armageddon real soon).

Still, there were people in the religion that I genuinely loved. Les and Kara are prime examples, but then there were my parents and grandparents, my mom’s siblings, and my Dad’s sister and youngest brother. I didn’t want to leave the religion because I didn’t want to lose their friendship; their love. Additionally, and I am sure Les feels similarly, I wanted the religion to be true. Or, at least, I wanted the good parts – such as living in a paradise earth free from crime and pollution – to be true.

And therein lied the problem: I wanted to best of both worlds, but I ended up just having the worst of both worlds.

I saw a vivid example of this a few weeks ago, at another family gathering. My wife’s dad, uncle, aunt, and brother-in-law were all discussing the fact that they hadn’t seen Kara in many months. Her aunt said it’s too bad, and she wondered aloud what it would take to get Kara to stop hating the family. Les, standing around and listening to all of this, couldn’t keep silent, he defended Kara by saying she’s been busy. “You know how people get with their lives,” he said casually.

I appreciate Les trying to defend his sister, but his argument was simply not true. Kara might have been too busy to have attended the family gathering that one night, but her reason for not attending Isla’s baby shower, a couple of visits to the cabin, her grandmother’s 80th birthday party, and even her own parents’ 40th wedding anniversary celebration is no secret. She has clearly made it known to her own mother, and to my wife, that she feels they are fighting against her religion, and that they are bad association. She fears that being in contact with them will upset her god and that she could get into trouble with her elders for being around ex-Witnesses. The entire family knows this, and the only reason why no one aired this on that night was out of respect for Les. I, for one, wanted to blurt out, “Sorry Les, but we all know that’s not true,” but I didn’t want to make Les feel bad.

At some point in the last few weeks, I’m sure Les told Kara about how the family feels about her continued absence (after all, it gives a lousy Witness). This probably got Kara’s conscience nagging her and, although it’s always uncomfortable when one’s conscience goes against one’s religion, Kara evidently said she might attend the family day today. Les told his mother this news, along with his fret that Jennifer or I might talk about her religion while she’s there. As you can imagine, this particularly scares Kara, as she knows she would be unable to logically defend her religion. Thus the shunning. See? It’s not a cult.

Anyway, Kara didn’t show up. But Les did. I had a great time talking with Les; he was once one of my best friends, and I hope he will be again someday. Les also brought his daughter along, and Owen had fun playing with his cousin. So the day was just great as far as I am concerned.

Before leaving for the day, Jennifer’s great-aunt took a look at Jennifer holding Isla, and her sister Roberta holding her new son. “Some people in our family just don’t know what they’re missing,” she said tearfully.