“ ‘Cause today my world slipped away
We buried the plans that we made
And tonight I’m alone and afraid
‘Cause today my world slipped away.”

—Vern Gosdin, lyrics: “Today my World…”
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The lyrics aren’t exactly accurate. My world started slipping away slowly a little over twenty-four months ago. In February of this year, it reached hyper-speed and has been escalating since. It culminated last Thursday, Nov. 1, at approximately 5:10 PM Eastern time. In a little court room in Phoenix, Arizona, the judge declared her official conclusion. And now that world is gone, slipped away. Like the years of our youth, it will never return.

Ellen and I are divorced. Our marriage annulled. Annulled. Whatever that means. A Catholic word. I thought only the Pope could do that, annul a marriage. Apparently not. It’s like it never happened. Like the sun never rose on August 4, 2000. Like the wedding service in the little mountain chapel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee has been struck from the records of existence. Like all the joy and expectations and hopes and dreams present on that day weren’t. Annulled. Gone. Vaporized by a magic wand. By the judge’s magic pen.

Divorced. A savage and brutal word. One I could never have imagined would ever apply to me. Who would? Divorced. The death of so much. Of love. Of marriage. Of friendships. Of families. Of dreams. Divorced. The whisper will now slither and waft about like a choking poisonous cloud wherever I go. The leprous stigma branded into my persona.

Divorced. Some will flinch away. Some will judge, piously quoting ream upon ream of applicable Scripture with vacant hearts and condescending confidence. Some will say wise, trite things. Some will pity openly, and I will despise them. Some will inquire, for reasons legitimate and illegitimate. Some will gossip, and the Lord will rebuke them. Some will write me off as lost. And some, I know, will be supportive in silence or with sparse awkward words and simple acts of kindness, sharing a pain they can neither express nor comprehend.

The last two years have been a harsh and bitter trail, now littered with the remains of all we were. And all we were not. We stand with naked and wounded souls before the world. It is impossible to endure the brutal sledge-hammer blows of such an experience unaffected or unscathed.

Somewhere, down deep, it hurts. Indescribably. The protective layers that cover the heart exist for a reason. I have not peeled them back. Not had the strength or the nerve. Maybe I never will. But now, a dull ache pounds, deep inside. It will pulse and throb there like a living thing for a long, long time. Until, I suppose, the wound is sliced open, the venom drained, the pain released, the nightmares exorcised.

Where does one go in a time such as this? What does one say or write? What words can possibly be written that have not been said before, by others who have passed before us on this same bleak road? Where does one turn? The bottle? The self-help psychobabble that clogs the bookstores? The trite vapid cliché? “Oh, it will be alright. With God all things are possible.” And that time-honored classic, vacuously intoned to a million people every day, “Time heals all wounds.” It’s a lie. Dulls it, maybe. Scabs over, sure. But heals? It does not and will not.

Now, amidst all the hostilities, all the noise, all the thunder, all the rage and anguish, all the cruel betrayal, all the failures on both sides, I stop and pause. I look back on the seven years of our marriage and remember. And reflect. The good times. There were some. A lot, actually. Times of laughter, life and love. And strangely, illogically, incomprehensibly, I can dredge up little rage at Ellen, although I know that others can and do and will. And I do not fault them for it. Maybe it will hit me in full force one day. But now, I feel only pain and loss and immeasurable sorrow.

She made our house a home. All the little touches of comfort, the little extras, the trinkets, they came from her. Most were packed away when she left. Some remain, a silent reminder of the hands that placed them there. She labored in the flower beds around the house for hours and hours, watering and weeding with love and care. She was an outstanding cook and often made delicious meals, when there was time from the work schedule. And she could sing, her voice lifted in open and joyful song as she puttered about the house. Sometimes I joined in, my own voice rough and untrained, making hers sound all the more beautiful.

Her heart yearned for a child. During the optimistic first year or two of our marriage, we scoured the local garage sales and bought many little things for a baby. Trinkets. A tiny bathing tub. Loads and loads of toys; there’s a box full in the house. She would be a natural and excellent mother. She always gravitated to the babies in church and held and cradled them. And they slept peacefully in her arms. In the depths and privacy of her soul, she deeply mourned our barren marriage. My heart often ached in silence for her. Especially during church service on Mother’s Day, when roses were passed out and the pastor opined emotionally about motherhood. Her agony pierced to the core of her heart. I comforted her awkwardly, as a man does.

We are the children of our fathers, and our fathers inflict the deepest wounds within us. Hers were particularly keen and agonizing. She ached for the relationship. In the past seven years, she tried and tried again and again to open a link of communication with him. She reached out. She cried for his love. She wrote poignantly and brokenly. For his acceptance. For the stability and reassurance that could only come from him. All in vain. Her overtures were coldly rejected. Again and again. Until she just gave up. During the first few years, she sometimes wept in bitter despair. Then less and less, and then not at all. The gulf remains, and it is her father’s loss to bear.

The man she turned to, my close friend for forty years, will not heal her wounds. No man can or will. For him, I have only seething venom; at him, only deep abiding rage. Although much more could be said on the matter, now is not the time. On this day, it’s not about him, and I will not grant him the importance of more than a passing mention. He will, however, be the sole subject of a future blog. One day. Soon.

Right now, I won’t pretend life is beautiful. It’s not. It’s ugly, raw, harsh and rough. And will be for awhile. But still, it’s life, and I will live it. I enter a strange new land with savage skies and unknown horizons, the first in my family to do so. Before me looms a steep and rutted road. Tomorrow, I suppose, will bring what it may. And sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Today, there are no more tears to weep; there are no more words to say. With no other recourse, and reacting instinctively, I turn my face to the bitter winds and walk.

THE COMMENT LINK IS CLOSED.

“An invitation to a wedding invokes more
trouble than a summons to a police court.”
—William Feather
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November is here. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings on my way to work, dozens of buggies clog the roads. On the back roads, I have to be careful when cresting a hill, because chances are there will be a horse and buggy traipsing slowly down the other side. And another beyond that one. And another and another. It’s quite annoying, really. And dangerous, too. I mutter to myself. Buggies should be outlawed on the roads. But I don’t mean it. I just like to grumble.

It’s wedding season here in Lancaster County. In Aylmer, where I grew up, weddings were held at any time of year, whenever a young couple decided to tie the knot. But not in Lancaster. Here, almost all weddings are scheduled for a Tuesday or Thursday in November. Tradition, I guess. After the harvest and all that. It was no problem a generation or two ago, when there were fewer Amish here. But now, with well over a hundred districts, dozens and dozens of weddings are squashed into eight days. A logistical nightmare. And the aforementioned clogged roads. It’s gotten so bad that a few weddings even spill into December, perish the thought.

I have attended scores of Amish weddings. Most of my siblings were married Amish. I faintly remember my oldest sister Rosemary’s wedding. I was four or five years old. I recall much commotion about the house, nothing at all of the service itself, and boxes and boxes of hot dogs Dad had bought for the noon meal. Red boxes, with a picture of a chef waving a spatula. Hot dogs were a rare treat, fit for a wedding (in case you’re wondering).

Other than that, I don’t remember many weddings in Aylmer because there weren’t many. For some reason, the church fathers there dictated some very stringent rules on dating. This discouraged dating, I think, and ultimately marriage. At the time we moved from Canada in 1976, when a couple started dating, they could see each other once a month, or every four weeks. Then, when things got really serious (expressions of love, talk of marriage, etc.) and they were “going steady,” they could increase that schedule to one date every two weeks. Love made the days fly, I’m sure. And they had better not get caught sneaking around or even looking at each other between dates. Anyone caught in such verboten activity could expect a prompt visit from the Deacon, a gristled, imposing man. And he wouldn’t be there to chat about the weather, either. At least not for long. Unbelievable. I don’t know if the church fathers thought the end of the world was imminent, and procreation unnecessary, or what. But that’s the way it was. Talk about regressive conservatism. Or maybe just simple oppression would be a better word.

After we moved to Bloomfield, Iowa, we discovered that dating couples there could see each other every week. We felt very liberated. Or at least my siblings did. Within a span of about five or six years, five of them got married in that community.

I took part in many weddings. My favorite job was waiting on tables for the noon meal. As a table waiter, you got to putz around getting ready in the morning and you could leave the wedding service immediately after the vows to go and prepare to serve the meal. All told, a table waiter might have to sit for about half an hour/forty-five minutes as opposed to the full 3 or 4 hours the regular guests had to sit quietly on hard back-less benches.

Being a witness, or “Nava Hocca,” was the least favorite job. The wedding couple had two sets of such attendants with them all day. It was considered the higher honor, to be Nava Hocca, but I can tell you it was vastly more tiresome and boring. More than once, I fell sound asleep sitting straight up with no support to lean against. Try that sometime. It’s hard to do.

The wedding is an all-day affair. The morning service begins at 9 or 9:30. A good preacher can make the time pass relatively unnoticed, but chances are always that the preacher will be boring as chalk on a blackboard. And drone on and on. Few things in life are more irritating than a boring Amish preacher (or any preacher) who likes the sound of his own voice and doesn’t pay attention to the time. And there are plenty such out there. Sometimes the clock seems to sit still, or even go backwards. A dull speaker creates an endless day, and restless guests.

Another major irritant often occurs when the Deacon, whose only job is to read a bit of Scripture, for reasons known only to himself, forgets his calling and decides to deliver an impromptu sermon of his own. Some such have been known to ramble on for up to twenty minutes. Whatever good they might imagine results from their words disap-pears in the hostile gaze of seething listeners whose only wish is that the speaker read the assigned verses and sit down. And shut up.

Everyone is always greatly relieved when Bishop instructs the couple, if they still feel like they did that morning, to tread before him. I have never heard of a couple not feeling like they did that morning: namely, their desire to get married. They rise and walk carefully up to him and stand before him. At this moment, the Nava Hocca stand at attention. This is their official purpose, to “witness” the ceremony. After a prayer, the Bishop administers the vows and places their hands together. Pronounces them man and wife. They return to their seats as such. From that moment until death.

Once we turned sixteen, and joined the youth, or rumspringa, as it’s fashionably called by those who write about the Amish (and think they know something about it), we looked forward to weddings because we could ask a girl to the table for the evening meal and singing. This was not considered a date, and the girls almost never turned down an invitation from any guy. I remember escorting different girls to the table on wedding evenings. It always created a buzz, to see which guy would escort which girl. More than a few married couples today began their relationship at the evening wedding feast of someone else.

Many years ago I attended a friend’s wedding in a large community in another state. I had left the Amish and was in my first year of college. But I was Amish for one day, that day. For the evening meal, the adult single boys each accompanied a girl to the table. I didn’t know any girls present and was among the last to be seated. Only old maids remained, plain dull girls, unattached, unclaimed. I was randomly paired with one from the poor little bedraggled bunch standing there. She came with me and we walked in.

As we passed through the front room of the house, a group of young thuggish pre-sixteen teenage toughs lurked menacingly and made loud mocking comments about the older, obviously dateless girls. I don’t know where their parents were. The young thugs should have been spanked and sent to bed without supper. The old maids, their heads hanging, tried to slink through the gauntlet quietly, ignoring the jeers. One young tough came right up to my companion and got in her face, hooting and laughing loudly.

It was too much. I stepped over, grabbed his shirt collar and lifted him back and told him roughly to leave the girl alone. He was so shocked he whimpered like a scolded puppy. He slunk back to his fellow thugs, rubbing his neck.

The girl and I went in and were seated with the others at the long table. During the meal, I made small conversation with her, but she was very shy and uncomfortable. She spoke softly with downcast eyes. I felt terrible for her.

After the singing was over and it was time to take my leave, I thanked her for her company. I told her I was honored and had enjoyed it. For the first time all night, she looked me full in the eyes.

And she smiled. Naturally. Genuinely.

It was a startling and wondrous transformation. She straightened, her plain, homely face lit up and she glowed with a radiance from deep within. At that instant, for a brief moment, she was herself, the girl she really was. Beautiful, vibrant and alive. She stammered a few words, thanking me.

And then I left. I never saw her again.

I don’t even remember her name.
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After a week of rain, much needed but nonetheless dreary, the sun has returned. Along with some cooler fall weather. It finally feels like fall. The last two times I mowed the yard, I thought to myself this is the last time before winter. Now the rain has sprouted the grass again. So it might take one more mowing, unless the frost saves me the bother.

Don’t forget to turn your clocks back this weekend. Or I think it’s this weekend. It should have been last weekend. I am highly irritated at Congress for messing with and changing the daylight savings time schedule. It messes up everything. Just like those fat blowhards in Washington to twiddle with our time, yet. All in the name of saving the environment. Unbelievable hubris. The old system worked well like it was all these years. Leave it alone. While you’re at it, cut my taxes and stop spending my money on your pet pork projects. And start doing something that really matters, like drilling our own oil fields, for crying out loud. Idiots.

On a brighter note, Fred the Curmudgeon, responding to vehment protests and fiery emails from his loyal readers (including one from me), has decided to keep posting his weekly blog. Good things do happen occasionally.

In football, there will be a clash of Titans this Sunday at 4:15 PM. New England at Indianapolis. Two unbeaten teams. I’m hoping Payton and the boys can pull it out, but I’m afraid the wicked Bellichek’s team will prevail. Brady has been on a real tear this year, with some real receivers for a change. He’s on pace to easily break the single-season touchdown record. Put this in your pipe and smoke it, put it in your drink and drink it, take it to the bank and deposit it: The team that wins this Sunday’s game will have home field advantage in the playoffs and WILL win the Super Bowl. Period.

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