I likely said good bye to my father-in-law yesterday. It was staggering. He and I talked alone for about 30 minutes. It was all that he could endure before he was exhausted.

At the time of the last post, My To-Be-Ex didn't want me to come over to see them. She is really hurt by my leaving her and didn't think that she could deal with seeing me for the first time since May 14th and with what is happening with her dad at the same time. Her mom and sister talked with me and said variants on "of course you need to see him--you are family after all--and he needs to see you."

 The last three years of living in Ephrata were so my wife could be in a sunnier climate (which helps with her depression) and so she could be nearer her parents. I have already written about how it ended up completely cutting off any hint of a social life that I had left. My Father-in-law was my one friend in town. We would eat breakfast together on most saturdays before our wives got up. He was there for me previously when my wife had been suicidal, when it would have been easier (and more natural) for him to be more concerned with his daughter.

He was really hurt when my wife and I (as well as his other daughter) all rejected Christianity as adults. He is a devout Lutheran. In previous conversations he has indicated that he doesn't understand how anyone can live a good life apart from God.

He brought this up again, in this last conversation. He said "Charles, I know you don't believe any more. You know I hope that you will believe again, but I don't think you will. You are patterned after a Christian way of living and I hope you stick to that. You can pattern your life after many patterns, some good, some not so good and some bad. I worry about how you will pattern yourself."

He so doesn't understand me. I am driven, perhaps more than anyone else I have met, to be the best person I can be. My pattern WILL be very different from his. My ethics and morals are centered on a very different place than his. I wish he could understand how much more fulfilling it is to struggle to find what the best solution is than to read it from a book. I have tried both ways. I KNOW the difference.

I know he sees me leaving his daughter as the start of me choosing a bad pattern. I wish I could make him understand how much harder it is to choose to love her the most I can by leaving her--forcing her to grow and get better after having failed to nurture that growth more directly. It saddens me greatly that this man I respect and love so much could so fundamentally not understand me.

THIS is one reason why I reject religion. His beliefs keep him from seeing or understanding those around him--even when he loves them. Not because of actions, or intentions or motivations or results. Because of beliefs.

He thinks I fear death because I don't have the promise of salvation. I wish I could help him to understand. I left Christianity because of the hollowness of that promise in the face of driving my wife 6 times in 7 years to the hospital because she was going to kill herself to stop the anguish of her life. I can face death now because it is the great unknown. I don't know what happens, neither do you. I will will honor and treasure my memories of you. That is all that needs to be said or believed.  I do miss the rituals of death. The praying, the singing, the religious communities support, but not the rest.

I didn't let the conversation end there. I told him directly how much he has meant to me and how much of a role model he has been in my life. We talked about our wives and how we both worry about them through these transitions. We both worry that they will become codependent on each other instead of growing and becoming the best they can be. We especially worry about my wife. She is so strong and so fragile. She has so much growing up that she needs to do.

I told him that even though I wouldn't be married to her, that I was doing everything in my power to make sure she lived a full, rich and rewarding life--just like I always have been. He said that he knew that and respected that, though he still didn't understand how I could say that and still divorce her.

He was falling asleep while talking. His body is just out of energy. He got up and slowly walked me to the door. We hugged and cried and said a mutual "I love you" and I walked out to the car and cried, before leaving and going to go see my wife.

In my more self-pitying moments, I am stuck by how effective of a support structure we have all built for my wife, and how little I have. Her life is falling apart and she is getting closer to all of her family and the few friends that she has left.

Her family were also largely my support structure and now  there is this distance between us that is so apparent at this time of grief. I am not surprised that her mom, sister and dad would still include me, but I still feel sharply the gap in our hearts that is there. I grieve for that too.