Why I Left the Amish

by Saloma Miller Furlong

  “Can you have him pack his clothes, and make sure he has the appropriate clothes with dark pants, dark jacket, and a white shirt?”

  “Sure. What about a tie?”

  “You would probably both be better off without ties for an Amish funeral, but that is up to you,” I said. “But what are we going to do about the fact that you are in Vermont and I am in Massachusetts?”

  “I will just have to come down and get you tomorrow.”

  “I think it would be better for me to drive up there tonight to save ourselves a few hours tomorrow.”

  “That's up to you.”

  “Okay, I'd better get on the road. Don't forget to call Bernadette.”

  TIM AND I HAD THE CAR packed when David got home a bit before noon. We ate a quick lunch and began our journey west, across the bridge over Lake Champlain to New York State. The autumn colors were beginning to show on the mountains, and the lake was a sparkling blue. We curved in and around the Adirondacks to the New York State Thruway. Tim had brought his earphones and was listening to music in the back seat. David and I talked about how this time away might affect my first semester at Smith, and we also talked about the world I was about to reenter after leaving it twenty-four years before.

  We drove through Amsterdam, then got on Interstate 90 to travel another four hundred miles to Ohio. David talked about the route that had been familiar to him since his childhood, when his family used to visit his grandparents in Cleveland from his family's home, first in New York State, and then later Vermont. As we drove past the Indian Castle rest stop, David recalled once more the night they were stranded there in a snowstorm, when the interstate was closed down. His mother had multiple sclerosis, and she used to get immobilized by the cold. She wrapped herself in blankets that they got at the rest stop, and his father kept running the car off and on. The rest stop served hot drinks all night for free. Somehow they made it through the night, and the next day they continued on their way.

  We stopped along the way to change drivers. I drove the middle stint, past the bird sanctuary in Montezuma, while David slept and Tim listened to music. I tried remembering the last time my whole family had been together in one place, and I realized I didn't know when that was. Even Datt's death was not going to bring everyone together. I felt sorry for Sister Katherine. She lives in a group home in Kentucky because she is mentally challenged and cannot be independent. Sister Susan and I had tried to secure a ride for her to Ohio from Kentucky, but her caregivers were uncooperative. We didn't know what communications had taken place between Joe and the home where Katherine lived, and in the end Susan and I had to accept that it was out of our hands.

  Lizzie would also not be there. She had visited Datt the week before, when he was dying, and said she could not afford to come back again. Perhaps it was for the best, because her previous visit to Ohio had been stressful for both Sarah and Susan, who put her up as well as her daughter, Audrey. Sarah had warned Lizzie to keep her medications well out of reach of Sarah's little children, but one morning when she came into the kitchen, her three-year-old was holding a bottle of Lizzie's pills that would have been harmful had she consumed any.

  To make matters worse, Lizzie totaled her car while she was in Ohio, then tried to use that as an excuse to linger. Susan helped her to acquire a plane ticket and told Lizzie she could not stay with her any longer. Family dynamics such as these were set in motion long ago in our childhood. Lizzie was seen as the black sheep of the family, and now played the victim role to perfection.

  Very early on, Mem handed the eldest-daughter role to me, making Lizzie feel even more inadequate. It didn't help that I showed off how much smarter I thought I was. When Lizzie was in seventh grade, Mem would grill her on her times tables every night as she set the table. To show that I knew them better than she did, I would answer for her. If I had been the mother in that situation, I would have told “Lomie” in no uncertain terms to be quiet. What I didn't realize at the time is that I was playing the role that Mem expected me to. She didn't mind making Lizzie feel inferior. It was as if she wanted to “remake” Lizzie, rather than accepting her with all her shortcomings.

  Lizzie could turn her temper onto any one of us younger siblings without warning. Her normal method of violence was to make a fist and hit us with the bottom of both hands, as if her arms were a threshing machine and her hands were hammers. My inclination was to turn my back to her to protect my face, and so she would beat my back full force with both her arms, her hands landing on my back, hard and fast like hammers, over and over. When I got older, I fought back, but it was like a fight between a beagle dog and a boxer—I didn't stand a chance.

  We sisters had to share beds when we were growing up. We all hated to share a bed with Lizzie, because she thrashed about throughout the night. Once in the middle of the night, she lashed out in her dream of fighting someone, and I got the back of her hand smack in my face, full force. When I suddenly awoke and cried because it hurt so badly, she kept repeating that she was sleeping and didn't do it intentionally. I told her it still hurt, whether it was intentional or not, which she didn't seem to understand.

  There was one time in my life when I got along well with Lizzie. It was the fall I was fourteen and she was sixteen. When Datt first mentioned that she and I could get a job at the orchard, picking up drops, I didn't exactly look forward to working in the same place as Datt—until I got to the orchard. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. The trees, laden with apples, were planted in rows, and around the edges of the orchard were woods. Some of the woods were pine trees planted in straight rows, and then there were tall walnut trees, as well as the usual beech, hickory, maple, elm, and oak trees I recognized from our own woods. The oak trees at the orchard were bigger than any I'd ever seen.

  Lizzie and I sorted the apples under the tree, throwing the rotten ones towards the tree trunk and picking the good ones into wooden crates. We got paid ten cents a bushel. I loved the cool autumn air, and we ate all the crisp, sweet apples we wanted. We'd have a picnic at lunchtime, sitting on crates. We hardly ever saw anyone except one another. I don't remember having any disagreements with Lizzie during our time at the orchard, except for the day I got both of us in trouble. On this day, we were working close to a ravine. We looked down and saw a brook running through the ravine, with a wooden footbridge over it. Tall trees shaded the area, and there was a picnic table near the brook. There was a carpet of newly fallen leaves of red, orange, and gold under the tall trees. All morning, as we sorted and picked up apples, I tried to convince Lizzie that it wouldn't hurt to go down there to the picnic table to eat our lunch. She kept saying, “But we don't have permission. What if we get into trouble?” When lunchtime came, I convinced her it was okay to at least take a walk. We walked down the path, through a grove of pine trees. She kept saying, “What if we aren't supposed to do this?” I kept saying, “What's wrong with taking a walk?” At the end of the rows of pines, the trail dropped down into the ravine. As I walked through the freshly fallen leaves, I felt as though I had been in this place before. I was heading for the footbridge over the stream that reminded me of the fairy tale Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, when my wonderment was suddenly interrupted by Datt's angry and frantic voice booming down into the ravine. He yelled loudly, “Lomie! Lizzie! Where are you?”

  “Right here!” I called back.

  “You girls get back up here right now!”

  “Okay!” I called.

  “I told you we shouldn't have done this,” Lizzie said in a scared voice, all the way up the path. She was struggling to stay up with me, and she was panting. She had been obese even as a child, and at sixteen, her weight hampered her movements. By the time we got to the pine grove, Datt was already there. To cover the distance in the time he did it, I knew he must have been running. I couldn't understand why he was so upset. I told him we were going for a walk during our lunchtime, but he didn't answer—he just walked behind me at such a fast pace I felt as tho
ugh he would walk into me if I didn't walk fast enough. Lizzie panted next to me, but she didn't slow down. When we got back to the spot where our crates were, Datt said, “Now you girls get to work, and you stay doing your work!” With that, he stomped off, each step an exclamation point to what he had just said.

  We worked in a subdued way for the rest of the day. Datt didn't tell us why he was so upset. I wondered if it was only because we had left our work, or if he actually was concerned for our safety. The latter would have suggested he had paternal feelings for us, and I didn't think he was capable of that. Since this was the first time we had ever left the trees where we were sorting drops, we wondered if Datt had been keeping an eye on us all along and we didn't know it.

  Our crisp autumn days at the orchard came to an end when the apples were all picked. My dream of finding that enchanted fairy-tale place in the woods where I imagined sitting by the little arched bridge for hours, watching birds and the little creatures of the forest, was never realized.

  DAVID AWOKE AND OFFERED to drive again. I was happy to let him. I slept until we arrived at Bernadette and Maurice's house a bit before midnight. Bernadette had left the door open for us. We slipped in with our luggage and locked the door behind us, then found our respective bedrooms and retired for the night.

  In the morning, we ate breakfast with Bernadette and Maurice. Tim was wearing a t-shirt that had a big black image showing through his dress shirt. I asked him if he had brought any other t-shirts, and he said this was fine. David chimed in and agreed with Tim and wouldn't answer me when I asked if he had brought any extras. Bernadette didn't say anything, but after breakfast she laid a white t-shirt on the chair next to Tim and told him he could borrow it if he wanted to. I didn't say anything, and Tim changed the shirt. I was grateful to Bernadette that she had prevented a power struggle. Attending Datt's wake was tense enough.

  We left our car parked out at the end of the driveway and walked into the house in which I had grown up. It looked very different now: Instead of the old weathered barn of my childhood, there was now a circular driveway in front of the house, with a shop, buggy shed, and barn, and a long, low building that my brother used to house his masonry tools in the courtyard. Set back, next to this tool shed, was the little Dodde house Mem and Datt had lived in for the last two decades.

  The entrance of the house had also changed. The stairs going up into the kitchen were in the same place they had been in my childhood, but the entrance had been built where a little outside porch had been before. The house was quiet when we went up the stairs, which I found strange. Normally the Amish have an ongoing wake from the time a person dies until after the funeral.

  Joe and Emma had put in new cupboards some years ago, which updated their kitchen to look like other Amish kitchens. The floors were clean and shiny hardwood. Rows of benches stood in the kitchen and living room, but all of them were empty. One man sat by himself in the corner of the living room. “Jake Miller, married to Irene,” I thought to myself. “I wonder why he's all by himself?” Jake was perhaps the least respected member in the community.

  Jake asked if I remembered him, and I said I did. I wondered how I could possibly have forgotten him. He was often described in the community as “not as smart as I should be,” which is the Amish way of humbling oneself while putting down someone else at the same time. Jake's wife, Irene, was known among the Amish as schloppich (sloppy). Together they had trouble caring for their growing family when I was a teenager. As was the custom in such a situation, other members of the Amish community took it upon themselves to help Jake and Irene. That job seemed to fall on our family. Perhaps Mem thought we could improve our own image in the community, or perhaps she just decided she had so many daughters she didn't know what to do, so she sent us to help the little woman who had so many children she didn't know what to do. My sisters and I occasionally walked the two miles to their house to clean or cook or look after their children for a day.

  Jake and Irene lived in a crowded little dark part of his parents' house, and every time we went over there, we had to scrape and wash dishes that had dried-out food all over them, and then pick up the toys from the filthy floor so we could sweep and mop. A week later, when we went back, it looked like no one had washed dishes or swept the floor since the last time we had done it. Jake and Irene's situation was the only one I knew of in the community that was worse than our own. I am not certain why Jake and Irene were being helped and our family wasn't. Perhaps it was because Jake and Irene's children didn't have even one responsible parent, and we at least had Mem.

  IRENE OFTEN HAD TWO or three children in diapers, but her treatment of the diapers was so negligent it was considered a health hazard. Her house usually smelled so strongly that it was obvious she let diapers go for weeks before washing any. To eliminate the problem, people in the community bought her disposable diapers. Irene then burned the dirty diapers in her woodstove. In the summer, when the stove was not going, she would let them collect in there until she decided she had had enough, and then the whole neighborhood smelled of the horrible stink that came from her chimney.

  Irene was not a good cook, so quite frequently in the summer, Jake would take the little red wagon and walk the mile to the nearest town to buy several gallons of ice cream. That would be their dinner. Because the Amish don't own freezers, leftover ice cream normally is given to the neighbors—but Jake had a different idea. He would leave it out overnight, and the next morning he would slurp the melted ice cream and call it his milkshake.

  JAKE SPOKE AND BROUGHT me back to the present. “The others are out in the shed eating. The patient is in the bedroom, if you want to go on in.”

  I found it eerie that Jake called Datt a patient: it gave me the feeling that I was about to open the bedroom door and find Datt was still alive. But I calmed the eerie feeling by telling myself that Jake had made an honest mistake.

  David, Tim, and I entered the bedroom. There was Datt's body, dressed in his Sunday best, laid out on a stretcher, his still hands crossed. A window was open, with a breeze blowing through his gray beard. It gave the illusion of movement. Tim became restless after a few moments, so David left with him, leaving me alone with Datt. As if to intensify my apprehensive feelings, the door above the stairs, which had been ajar, suddenly blew shut with a decided bang. I closed the window to stop the breeze from blowing through Datt's beard, and then all was quiet. In my thoughts I told Datt that I was glad he had a peaceful death. I told him I loved him, and that I had forgiven him for his failings, and that I hoped he would find peace in the afterlife.

  David opened the door and came in. He put his arm around me, and then the tears came. I looked at David and said, “No matter what, it is still the end of a life. There is sadness in that alone. And he was my father, after all.” David took a tissue from the box on a stand in the corner of the room and gave it to me. We heard people coming into the house. I said, “We should probably go out.” I put my hand on Datt's and looked at him again. He looked as if he had just fallen asleep.

  When I stepped into the living room, I saw my cousin Mary; my sisters-in-law, Emma and Linda; and many other church women. I shook hands with all of them, and the ones I hadn't seen since I'd left asked, “Meinst mich noch?” (Do you remember me?) as they shook my hand. The people I remembered grinned broadly, and the ones I didn't remember seemed disappointed.

  Mem came in and hobbled over with her three-pronged cane to sit in a rocking chair in the corner of the living room. Her hands and arms were arthritic, looking like gnarly tree branches. She dropped her large frame into the bent hickory rocker. David has often likened Mem's physical presence to that of a mourning dove, with a large body and a small head. She looked tired and sad. Normally her face looked younger, with her light blue eyes and fair skin that was far less wrinkled than most women at eighty-three, but two days after Datt's death she looked her age. David, Tim, and I sat with her. I asked her how she was doing, and she said pretty good. She said, “I a
m so glad he isn't suffering any more. But oh, Saloma, it was so hard when he died. I just thought I had to help him.” Susan had told me that Dad had aspirated in his last moments and that Mem had focused on trying to wipe it away until Joe had caught her arm and said, “Mem, let it go.” It was as if Mem had been trying to wipe away death itself—her own form of denial at the very end.

  I said to Mem, “I heard about that. Do you know that having that kind of thing happen at the end is quite common? That happened with David's Mom. One of his sisters said Ruth looked as if she was drowning.”

  Mem's face got red with emotion. I said, “Mem, you have to know that you did everything you could for him. Not just at the last minute, but for the last fifty years.”

  Mem's tears spilled down her cheeks. I held her hand and cried with her. “I know you are going to miss him,” I said.

  “Oh, but I am just so glad he is in a better place,” Mem said. She cried until her tears were spent.

  Brother Simon came over and heartily shook my hand. It felt like his hand was twice as big as mine. He said, “I read your letters to Mom and Dad.” He had tears in his eyes as he said, “I was so touched.” To my surprise, here was my younger brother, who was physically big and strong, moved to tears over the letters I had written.

  “So you read them?”

  “Yes, I did. The way you can write is such a gift!”

  “Why, thank you, Simon.” I was still reeling with the knowledge that Mem had shared the letters, which I had intended to be private.

  Later, Mem said something about her sisters reading the letters, and I asked, “So you let other people read those letters?”

  “I didn't exactly. They snooped and read them. They were lying on my dresser.”

  “Nosy them,” I said.

  “Yes,” Mem said with wan smile. Then she added, “I hope you don't mind, but I shared them with other people too.”

  “I noticed. Simon mentioned that he'd read them. I thought they were going to be private, but I guess if you don't have a problem sharing them, I don't either.” I gulped down my disappointment, knowing that at this point it wouldn't matter even if I did mind. I couldn't take away the fact that Mem had already shared them.